Last Night In Baseball: The Pirates Got To Shohei Ohtani, The Pitcher And Hitter

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Even Shohei Ohtani has off nights. Of course, his off night on Wednesday involved allowing — gasp — three earned runs over 6 ⅔ innings, and going a mere 1-for-5 at the plate with a run and two RBIs. Of course, Ohtani had only the one hit because he was robbed of a home run early, when Pirates’ left fielder Bryan Reynolds kept a ball in the yard in the third. That would end up mattering for more than just Ohtani’s personal boxscore, too: Pittsburgh ended up defeating the Dodgers in a one-run game, and that would have been a two-run dinger for Ohtani. As for home runs that did make it to where no one could catch them, check out right fielder Tyler Callihan getting his first big-league homer. And a wet one, at that, 427 feet away into the Allegheny. The celebration was short-lived, however: in the sixth, the Dodgers got back on the board against reliever Carmen Mlodzinski, who had entered the game an inning earlier. Center fielder Andy Pages singled, first baseman Freddie Freeman walked, third baseman Max Muncy drew a free pass, too, and then rookie left fielder Ryan Ward did the only sensible thing one can do with the bases juiced. Ohtani was cruising at this point, so the Dodgers put him out there for the seventh inning — a complete frame would have qualified him for the ERA title, as he would have as many innings pitched as Los Angeles has played games this season. It wasn’t meant to be, however: Ohtani allowed a two-out RBI double to second baseman Brandon Lowe, and then Alex Vesia came on in relief before allowing Lowe to score, too. That was not just the first time that Ohtani allowed three runs in a start this year, but the first time two runs have been scored in the same inning against him. Hey, there’s a reason that subhed says “looked mortal (for him)” you know. It also wasn’t the end of Pittsburgh’s scoring. Callihan went yard again, hitting his second career dinger, too, to give the Pirates a 7-4 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. First baseman Spencer Horwitz would add a two-run homer later in the frame to make it 9-6, Pirates, and while the Pirates’ bullpen would try to give this game away, too, it fell just short of doing so: Gregory Soto gave up just two runs in the ninth, stopping the Dodgers right before they could tie. That makes Thursday’s matchup the rubber game, and it’s a huge one for the Bucs. It’s been a disaster week for the Guardians, as this was a chance to prove they belonged against a top AL team in the Yankees. A chance to either take advantage of the White Sox having to face the MLB-leading Braves, or at least keep ahead of Chicago thanks to both teams drawing a tough assignment. Instead, Cleveland was swept by the Yankees, losing 7-5, 3-2 and on Wednesday, 8-4. Tied up 3-3 in the top of the sixth, center fielder Trent Grisham laced a triple to right field off lefty starter Tyler Messick. José Caballero — back but in the outfield while Anthony Volpe struggles at shortstop, again — then hit a sac fly to drive Grisham in and give New York a 4-3 lead. Volple, who has a .660 career OPS and has been even worse than that in 2026, would actually deliver here, however, doubling to score Caballero. The Yankees would keep piling on, but there was no need, as the Guardians only managed one more run for the rest of the game. The Yankees have won four in a row, the Rays three, leaving the two tied atop the AL East despite New York’s sweep — Tampa Bay simultaneously swept the flailing Red Sox with a 7-5 W on Wednesday. As for the Guardians, well… …with a win on Wednesday combined with Cleveland’s defeat, the White Sox have sole possession of first place in the AL Central. The White Sox, who lost 102, a modern-record 121 and 101 games in the last three seasons. First place! In nearly mid-June! For a team that won half as many games as it lost over a three-year stretch — no, really: 162-324, from 2023-2025. Horrific, that. But now they are 36-31 and atop their division. Incredible stuff. To add another exclamation point to the mix, Chicago got there by defeating the MLB-best Braves, again. The White Sox bested their former ace, Chris Sale, thanks to current ace Davis Martin twirling six shutout innings, while the bullpen combined to allow only one run to the Braves’ lineup. Tuesday’s hero, rookie Braden Montgomery, had an impressive follow-up to his walk-off homer. Montgomery went 2-for-4 with two doubles — including one off Sale — as well as a run scored. No small thing in a 2-1 win: he’s already making a difference, along with all the other young players the White Sox have brought to the roster over the course of the last calendar year or so. Entering the eighth inning, the Giants were down 9-1 to the Nationals thanks to a two-inning, seven-run outburst from Washington. That deficit did not last: third baseman Matt Chapman led off the bottom of the eighth with a solo homer, then first baseman Rafael Devers followed with a shot of his own to make it 9-3. Devers, by the way, is batting .254/.327/.521 with 23 extra-base hits since May 3 after a horrific April. Right fielder Jung Hoo Lee — who extended his hitting streak to 18 games earlier in the contest — walked, as did designated hitter Bryce Eldridge. Catcher Daniel Susac then doubled in Lee, and outfielder Drew Gilbert pushed Eldridge across with a ground out, cutting the lead to 9-5. A wild pitch by new pitcher Orlando Ribalta then scored Susac, capping a five-run inning. The Nationals would get one back in the top of the ninth, a reminder of how difficult coming back with so little game left can be. Challenge accepted by the Giants: Gus Varland came on in relief of Ribalta for the bottom of the ninth, and promptly allowed back-to-back doubles to second baseman Luis Arraez and Matt Chapman; 10-7, Nationals. Devers would then walk, causing Mitchell Parker to relieve Varland, but Parker gave up a single to Lee to load the bases for Eldridge. On the third pitch, an 80.1 mph slider inside, Eldridge unloaded. With no outs, Eldridge hit a walk-off grand slam to propel the Giants to victory. They had been down eight runs at the start of the previous inning, and even allowed another in between, and it didn’t matter. What a win for San Francisco. Look at this play by Blue Jays’ pitcher Tyler Rogers. It’s one you have to see to believe. Bonus: look at Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s face as the play is happening. He can’t believe Rogers pulled off this flip, to the point that he can’t hide his surprise as he’s in the act of catching it! The Blue Jays ended up losing to the Phillies, 7-4, but hey. What a highlight that is. And while we’re on the subject of the Blue Jays. Toronto’s starting pitcher, Max Scherzer, did allow five runs in 3 ⅓ innings, leading to that loss. However, he also picked up four strikeouts in his limited time on the mound, enough to reach and surpass 3,500 punch outs for his career. Scherzer is just the 11th pitcher in MLB history to strike out at least 3,500 hitters, and, at 3,503, he’s also just seven strikeouts away from pushing Hall of Famer and legend Walter Johnson out of the all-time top-10. Whether Scherzer can ascend any higher after that is a mystery, given how his season has gone to this point, but in seven more strikeouts, we will see another new entry into the top 10, and maybe the last one for… ever? At least for decades, unless Chris Sale pitches effectively into his mid-40s. Mike Trout, getting a day at DH, did not waste any time getting the Angels on the board against the Astros. In the bottom of the first, he drove the second pitch he saw — a 94 mph four-seamer — 404 feet to center to put Los Angeles up 1-0. And while Astros’ right fielder Cameron Smith managed a game-tying dinger of his own in the top of the eighth… …all that ended up doing was forcing extra innings, as neither team could put another run on the board before the 10th. Houston failed to push their gifted runner across in the top of the inning, even with a wild pitch moving Jeremy Peña over to third. That gave the Angels a chance to play for one run to win, and they did just that: pinch-hitter Donovan Walton bunted Nick Madrigal over to third, and then center fielder Jose Siri got the hero spot and singled in the game-winner. The Angels have not been good in 2026, and this was a chance for the Astros to capitalize as they tried to get back into contention in an AL West that hasn’t been very good on the whole. Instead, they dropped this series against Los Angeles, and found themselves further in the hole than when they began, at 31-39 and 5.5 back. The Athletics have had a very powerful week in Las Vegas so far, and that continued on Wednesday. While this wasn’t a high-scoring affair — the A’s defeated the Brewers, 4-3 — there were still a couple of mega blasts to admire. First, DH Carlos Cortes took a 91.7 mph cutter from reliever Chad Patrick, and sent it back 461 feet in the other direction. Well, that’s the estimate, anyway. It’s unconfirmed if it ever actually came down from up there. Not to be outdone, right fielder Lawrence Butler took one over the batter’s eye in center field just a couple of batters later. Another 91 mph cutter, and this one caught way too much zone. The result? A 463-foot homer, a couple feet further than Cortes’ shot. Again, if Cortes’ dinger landed, anyway. They might need to move the walls back even further in the new Vegas ballpark that’s being built for the A’s. Just in case, you know? This has been a brutal season for the Padres’ offense, and Fernando Tatis Jr. has been part of that. He’s been playing second base of late, since San Diego has loads of outfield options, and just hasn’t had much to provide offensively unless you’re comparing him to some of the other Padres’ hitters. He had a four-hit performance on Tuesday, however, and on Wednesday managed to hit just his second homer of the year — a walk-off shot to give the Padres a 5-4 W. Tatis is now batting .397/.431/.544 with six extra-base hits over his last 16 games — he still needs to rely less on singles to be convincingly back, but this is a significant improvement for a Padres team that needs whatever kind of offense it can muster right now.