Last Night In Baseball: Dodgers Sweep Rays To Earn MLB's Best Record

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The Dodgers aren’t inevitable, but they sure are terrifying. The Rays are a formidable opponent, but not formidable enough for Los Angeles, as the Dodgers swept Tampa Bay thanks to a 5-4 win in Wednesday’s go-home matchup.

A four-run fifth for the Rays made it seem like there could be trouble — Shohei Ohtani was the starting pitcher, and if a team can get to him, they can get to anyone. Ohtani settled down, however, and threw a scoreless sixth for his final frame, then the Dodgers’ bullpen settled in for three zeroes on the scoreboard, while the offense got to work playing catch up.

That process started immediately after going down 4-2. First baseman Freddie Freeman drew a leadoff walk against right-handed reliever Casey Legumina, then shortstop Mookie Betts and DH Miguel Rojas both singled to load the bases. Garrett Cleavinger would come on in relief, and, to his credit, get out of this situation mostly unscathed: he walked right fielder Kyle Tucker to bring a run in, but otherwise, escaped the significant no-out jam.

Kevin Kelly was not so lucky after coming on in relief in the next inning, however. He faced Freeman with a runner on, and the result was the eventual game-winning hit — a 407-foot two-run homer, Freeman’s 12th of the season.

That put the Dodgers up, 5-4, and that would be the final score. Alex Vesia made it seem like the Rays could come back by walking three batters in the top of the ninth, but he managed to strike out center fielder Cedric Mullins to end the self-inflicted threat and give Los Angeles the sweep.

The Dodgers now have the best record in baseball at 48-27: they have the same number of losses as the Braves, and while the Brewers have one fewer, Milwaukee is also three behind Los Angeles in wins. Meanwhile, the only other American League team with over 40 wins besides the league-leading Yankees is the Rays, and, well. The Dodgers made sure Tampa Bay stayed at 41.

What a game for Ryan O’Hearn. The Pirates’ right fielder, signed as a free agent this offseason to a two-year, $29 million deal, has been great for Pittsburgh all season: he’s hitting .290/.351/.475 with 11 home runs in 60 games, good for a 126 OPS+ that ranks fourth among Pirates’ regulars. And on Wednesday against the Athletics, he set a new career-high for RBIs with six. Or, more than the A’s managed to drive in as a team.

In the first, he doubled in two runs to make it 3-0 Pirates. In the fourth, O’Hearn hit his 11th homer of the season, a 360-foot fly ball to left, to make it 7-0, Pittsburgh, and give him his third and fourth RBIs of the day.

Finally, in the top of the seventh, O’Hearn would come to the plate with two runners in scoring position after catcher Henry Davis and first baseman Spike Horwitz got on base. He hit a two-out, two-run single to make it 12-2, Pirates, and pick up his final two RBIs of the contest.

The win moved Pittsburgh to 38-37, putting them a game back over .500 after they dipped below it before this series against the A’s. While the Bucs sit nine games back of the Brewers in the NL Central, they are just one back of a wild-card spot. The Athletics, meanwhile, got a little lucky in that the Mariners have not been able to capitalize on these losses much: Seattle is just 1.5 up in the AL West despite the A’s middling play.

Kyle Bradish had a great game for the Orioles against those very Mariners, but it was almost marred a bit by one Cal Raleigh. Big Dumper nearly went yard for the first time since his return from the IL, but instead, Tyler O’Neill was there to erase the mistake.

Just a little hop after correctly figuring where it was going, nothing fancy. But enough to keep Raleigh in the park, and preserve the O’s narrow lead.

Bradish maybe didn’t need the assist, though. He ended up going 7 ⅔ innings with a career-high 12 strikeouts, while mostly scattering five hits and two walks by allowing only one run to Seattle.

He struck out Mariners’ third baseman J.P. Crawford on his 100th and final pitch of the game, before giving way to reliever Yennier Cano. It’s the first start this year in which Bradish recorded an out in the eighth inning, just his third start with at least seven innings and his second with double-digit strikeouts. He pitched so well that, despite giving up a run, his ERA fell all the way from 4.30 to 4.00 — that undid most, but not all, of the damage that came from his previous two starts, in which Bradish gave up 10 runs over a combined eight innings. The second of those games was against the Mariners, too, but Bradish certainly rebounded for the rematch.

Remember that slow start for Pete Crow-Armstrong? He doesn’t seem to. The Cubs’ center fielder hit yet another dinger, his third in three games, against the Rockies on Wednesday. 

It put Chicago up 8-1 at the time, which seemed a little like piling on, but the Rockies ended up getting their offense together just a few innings later — the final score was 8-6, Cubs.

Crow-Armstrong had a horrific start to the year. Just absolutely brutal, a continuation of the struggles that severely damaged his numbers a year ago starting the All-Star break. He showed some flashes of breaking out of that slump on occasion, but it never quite stuck… until it did. On May 26, he went 1-for-3, but it kicked off a 12-game hitting streak, and when that ended he spun up an eight-game streak in the very next contest — this homer is what pushed that one to eight.

He’s hit an absurd .389/.434/.811 with nine home runs in this 21-game, 99-plate appearance stretch, with 18 extra-base hits, four steals in five attempts and eight of those dingers coming in June, tied for the most of any player in MLB. PCA is now leading the majors in wins above replacement — remember, he’s an otherworldly defender in center even when the bat isn’t showing up — and while he’s not going to hit like this forever, the fact he’s showing he can do so at all is huge given how dire his struggles were for roughly five months of MLB games over two seasons.

The Diamondbacks might not be close to the Dodgers in the NL West, but Arizona is still fighting for a wild-card spot, and finds itself just half-a-game out of the mess that is a three-way tie between the Padres, Nationals and Cubs. (Yes, San Diego is technically holding that spot right now, but by .001 points of winning percentage.) To get there, the D-backs have to beat teams like the Angels, which are in last place in the American League — those opportunities can’t slip by. And on Wednesday, Arizona took the series with an 8-1 dub.

The star of the show was right fielder Corbin Carroll, even though he went just 1-for-5. That’s because Carroll had the biggest hit you can: with the game tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the second and the bases juiced, he took a changeup on the inside of the zone from lefty starter Sam Aldegheri and drove it into the stands in right.

That would be all the runs that Arizona needed for the W, but three more were added to get to the final score of 8-1. The dub wasn’t just key for the D-backs, but also meaningful for starting pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez, as it was the 100th of his career. That makes Rodríguez just the ninth-ever Venezuelan-born pitcher to record at least 100 wins in MLB.

Rodríguez is in his age-33 season, and the all-time leader from Venezuela is former Mariners’ ace Félix Hernández, with 169. It’s not unreasonable to assume that, so long as he stays on the mound, Rodríguez can keep on moving up this list a bit before he calls it a career. And if he does, he will pass the likes of Aníbal Sánchez, Carlos Zambrano, Johan Santana and Freddy García along the way.

As early as youth baseball, coaches tell players not to slide into first base. Especially not head first! It will slow you down, it’s dangerous and so on. You know who does get to slide headfirst into first, though? A first baseman trying to make a play, who doesn’t have the full head of steam that a baserunner does. And that’s just what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did for the Blue Jays on Wednesday against the Red Sox.

That first view makes it look like Guerrero just beat out the runner, pinch-hitter Nate Eaton, but this side view shows you that the Jays’ first baseman was in control from the start.

Toronto would end up winning, 3-0, and that was largely due to Guerrero as well: he went 2-for-4 with a pair of singles and two RBIs, in addition to this defensive play.

In April, the Brewers signed shortstop prospect Cooper Pratt to an eight-year, $50.75 million contract with all kinds of escalators and options, and this week he debuted in the majors. While he didn’t pick up any hits in his first game, he took care of that in his second. In the bottom of the second inning, against Guardians’ starter Gavin Williams, Pratt singled to right field to pick up his first big-league knock.

Pratt would then score his first run in the majors later that inning when DH Christian Yelich singled him in, and his first RBI would come in the bottom of the eighth. The Brewers sent pinch-runner Blake Perkins in for Andrew Vaughn, who had just hit a double as a pinch-hitter, and then Perkins went home on another single to right from Pratt.

His first hit, first run, first RBI and first multihit game, all in one go. That takes care of a lot of business at once for the 21-year-old. More of this would be great for the Brewers, considering shortstop and third base are their weakest positions: third baseman Luis Rengifo was designated, with David Hamilton now regularly playing at the hot corner instead, and now Pratt gets a shot to play well at short in place of Joey Ortiz, who will serve as bench infielder instead of a starter. Not a bad potential upgrade there for a team that’s already among MLB’s best.

The Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009, and that might feel like a long time for them, specifically, but consider some context. Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart of the 2026 NBA champion New York Knicks threw out first pitches before the Yankees’ game on Wednesday, and the title they are celebrating is the first for that franchise in 53 years.

Can you imagine the Yankees going 53 years without a championship? Sure, some Red Sox fans might dream about it, some Mets fans, too, but the longest time in between championships that the Yanks have ever endured is 17 years, after winning in 1978 but then not again until 1996. If New York doesn’t win in 2026, however, they will have matched that mark. So, things aren’t that bad yet/there’s still hope yet, depending on if you’re a fan or a hater.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. paid tribute to the champs on a homer, too, flashing a Euro step before touching home plate on his trot. 

Fitting, too, since Chisholm is just 5-foot-11 and listed at 184 lbs. yet has plenty of pop despite his stature, and Brunson was long considered incapable of being a topline star in the NBA due to his (relative) small size of 6-2 and under 200 lbs. There’s more to sports than pure size, though!

Hey, they figured it out eventually.