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Upstaging Shohei Ohtani, especially on a day he pitches, is no easy feat.
But at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, teammate Max Muncy did it twice — hitting two home runs and matching a career high with seven RBIs to lift the Dodgers to a 13-7 defeat of the Washington Nationals, and make Ohtani more of the sideshow in his second pitching start of the season.
Despite two strikeouts over a scoreless first inning from Ohtani to begin the day, Dodger Stadium had sat in relative silence for the next five innings.
Ben Casparius, who replaced the still workload-restricted Ohtani on the mound in the second, gave up a three-run home run in the third, when a flyball deflected off Hyeseong Kim’s glove at the wall before hitting a fan reaching over the barrier.
Michael Soroka, the former All-Star turned inconsistent journeyman, held the Dodgers hitless into the fifth, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts while protecting the 3-0 lead.
In the bottom of the sixth, however, an opportunity for the Dodgers finally arose.
Dalton Rushing led off with a slicing ground-rule double down the left-field line. Ohtani drew a walk with the help of two favorable ball-strike calls. Badly slumping Freddie Freeman was bailed out of an 0-and-2 count on a wild slurve from Soroka that hit his foot.
And suddenly, the Nationals had to go to the bullpen, summoning left-hander Jose A. Ferrer to face Muncy with the bases loaded.
The fan experience at Dodger Stadium now includes a finely choreographed production at virtually every moment except when the ball is in play, and that includes music, cranked up.
After just three pitches to Muncy, Ferrer called out the grounds crew to rake the mound and smooth out his landing area on the downslope.
But at the plate, it gave Muncy time to think about his at-bat against Ferrer the night before, mentally lock in on what to expect, and catch his breath in the biggest moment of the game.
“When he’s ready, he’s ready,” Muncy said he told himself. “And let’s get a swing off.”
Muncy did on each of the next two pitches, fouling off one center-cut sinker before lining the next deep to left for a script-flipping, deficit-erasing, go-ahead grand slam.
“I saw the guy last night, so had a good idea of what he was throwing in there and how to approach it,” Muncy said. “I was trying to keep the ball off the ground, get something in the air, get at least one run in. Just trying to do a job. And I got a good swing off and got the ball in a good spot.”
Ohtani started the day as the main attraction.
The two-way star drew a crowd as he came onto the field for pregame warm-ups and got loose in the left-field bullpen — prompting fans even up in the upper reserve-level deck to lean over railings and get a look at his dual-role talents.
And once the game began, Ohtani climbed atop the mound and showed progress from his season debut as a pitcher six days before.
“I thought he was considerably better today,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The stuff, the life of the fastball, the command of his pitches — much better.”
Ohtani’s scoreless inning included strikeouts of Luis Garcia Jr. on a sweeper and Nathaniel Lowe on a cutter, representing his first strikeouts since returning from Tommy John surgery. He worked around a dropped infield pop-up from Mookie Betts in an otherwise efficient 18-pitch, 12-strike outing. He hit 99 mph with his fastball while mixing in a healthy dose of sweepers, cutters and splitters to complement it.
“Overall, I was able to relax much better compared to my last outing,” said Ohtani, who noted that the plan for Sunday’s start was to once again be limited to only one inning.
“I think that it’s just more of just trying to get the foundation, the building blocks as he’s taking at-bats,” Roberts added. “Getting an inning here, an inning there, and then just gradually progress.”
Ohtani also quieted recent questions about whether his return to pitching was affecting his bat.
After entering the day two-for-19 in five games since resuming two-way duties, Ohtani helped the Dodgers (48-31) pull away late. In the seventh, he laced a bases-loaded, three-run triple past the first base bag, turning a narrow one-run lead into a comfortable four-score cushion over the Nationals (32-46). In the eighth, he added more insurance, belting a two-run homer to left-center field for his National League-leading 26th long ball.
“When he’s going to the big part of the field, I think he’s really, really good,” Roberts said. “So today was good. And hopefully it quiets the noise a little bit with the days that he pitches.”
Not to be outdone, however, Muncy raised the ante himself in the latter innings, following Ohtani’s seventh-inning triple with a three-run home run to right three batters later.
“You look at the last 30 days, I think he’s been our best hitter,” Roberts said. “We never wavered in our confidence, and we’ve shown that, and he’s proven us all right.”
Indeed, Sunday continued a stunning mid-season turnaround for Muncy — giving him a .305 average with 10 home runs and 38 RBIs over his last 39 games; compared to a .177 average, one home run and seven RBIs in his first 35 contests.
It moved him into third place among National League third basemen this season with an .815 OPS — making a player who once seemed bound for trade rumors this summer unexpectedly on the fringes of the All-Star conversation.
And, it somehow managed to top the all-around production Ohtani displayed in his two-way encore, lifting the Dodgers to a weekend series win and 7-3 record overall on this 10-game homestand.
“It’s definitely a snowball effect,” Muncy said. “Confidence is high right now.”
Clayton Kershaw’s humble reaction in 2014 when a teammate botched a ‘perfect game’ epitomizes the lesson unique to this sport.
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