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Shohei Ohtani moves closer to 50-50 as Dodgers start fast, outlast Cubs

DailyNews.com 

LOS ANGELES — A historic 50-50 season is coming so fast now, even the home runs are leaving the field quicker than ever.

Shohei Ohtani hit a line-drive home run to right-center field at 118 mph off the bat as the leadoff batter in the first inning.

He added a stolen base in the third.

And even with the Dodgers hitting four home runs in the first inning, they still had to fend off the Chicago Cubs’ late rally for a 10-8 victory.

“There might be one guy on the planet, and he’s playing for the Yankees, that could probably do that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Aaron Judge, when talking about Ohtani’s laser home run. “It was also top spin. So for him to hit the ball 118 mph at that degree, it’s usually a double, but for Shohei it’s a home run.

“He’s playing tremendous baseball. You can see he’s picking us up big time.”

Tommy Edman added two home runs, to give him four home runs in a mere 24 hours, as the former St. Louis Cardinals fan favorite continued to show disdain for the hated rival of his previous club.

The Dodgers are looking for somebody to take charge in the bottom of the order and Edman has raised his hand, hitting home runs from both sides of the plate Wednesday after hitting two from the right side Tuesday.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before in my life,” Edman said of his consecutive multi-homer games. “I feel like I’ve kind of gotten locked into a good routine in the cage, working on mechanics and having consistent movements in my swing and the results are paying off.”

Edman said it was the first time he had home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game.

Ohtani’s home run was his career-high 47th on the season, while the stolen base was his 48th. He now has 16 regular-season games remaining to pull off his 50-50 proposition.

“We all definitely know what is going on,” Smith said of Ohtani’s historic run. “It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to be a part of and see every night. I think he’ll do it and we’ll enjoy it as he tries to get there. But more importantly, he’s trying to help us win ballgames.”

The most home runs ever hit in a 40-40 season before this year were 46 by Washington’s Alfonso Soriano in 2006. Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. is the only player to ever have more than 50 stolen bases in a 40-40 season when he had 73 last season to go along with 41 homers.

Along with Ohtani’s early blast, three first-inning home runs came in succession from Edman, Will Smith and Max Muncy (on his bobblehead night). The Cubs, who rallied for a victory with five runs in the eighth inning Tuesday, hardly were demoralized.

The Cubs’ Cody Bellinger reminded everybody that he used to be the one launching home runs into the night at the ballpark atop the hill, rallying the Cubs with a three-run home run off of Bobby Miller in the fifth inning.

Chicago tied it with a fourth run in the fifth inning, aided by another Dodgers error when Chris Taylor booted a potential double play grounder. One batter later, Pete Crow-Armstrong singled for a 7-7 tie.

Miller continues to see his chances of appearing on the playoff roster slip away. The right-hander gave up six runs on five hits and four walks (three with two outs) over 4⅓ innings and has allowed 13 runs over his last two starts (9⅓ innings). Miller’s ERA ballooned to 8.17.

“I think he’s grinding; I see it,” Roberts said of Miller. “He’s competing as much as he can. I think today it was easy to see that he didn’t have feel for the curveball. They were taking good swings at the fastball as we’ve talked about.”

The victory seemed to be a formality when Ohtani hit a two-run single in the third inning for a 7-3 lead, but the Dodgers have lacked a straightforward gear of late.

Even when they took a 10-7 lead into the ninth they had to endure their own self-created drama when right-hander Michael Kopech walked the first three Cubs batters of the inning. He managed to give up just one run with a little help when Seiya Suzuki was thrown out trying to steal third base for the second out of the inning. Former Dodger Michael Busch struck out swinging to end the game as Kopech eked out his 13th save (fourth with the Dodgers).

With the victory, the Dodgers (87-59) remained five games up on the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks (82-64) and moved 5½ games up on the San Diego Padres (82-65). The Dodgers’ magic number to clinch their 11th National League West title in 12 seasons is 11.

“The most important thing was to come out with a win today,” Muncy said when asked about the Cubs nearly stealing another game in the series. “It was frustrating again but it’s baseball.

“Not everything is going to be clicking at the same time. That’s the unfortunate part of it, but it felt like guys were battling up there and good to see guys not giving up until the very end.”

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