Last Night In Baseball: The Cubs Swept The Reeling Dodgers

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: Things are not going great for the Dodgers right now. Los Angeles was in line to be the first team to 70 wins in MLB, as it won No. 69 back on July 30. The Dodgers are still waiting to win 70 a week later, which the Brewers already did, and now L.A. has seen the Braves catch up to it in the standings, too. The Red Sox swept the Dodgers over the weekend, and that series went right into one against the Cubs in Chicago — Los Angeles was swept for a second series in a row with an afternoon loss on Wednesday. Six games is the second-longest losing streak the Dodgers have suffered since 2019, with Los Angeles dropping seven in a row in 2025. That didn’t stop it from winning the 2025 World Series, but there are reasons to be genuinely concerned that this club isn’t as dominant as it needs to be to ensure another title. Of course, that’s why they play the games, and it’s only August. Things started out well enough, with Shohei Ohtani crushing his 11th leadoff home run of the season, four shy of tying the MLB record and also of passing the Dodgers’ franchise mark of 32, currently held by teammate Mookie Betts. The issues began the next inning, when Pete Crow-Armstrong answered Ohtani’s leadoff blast with one of his own. Chicago’s center fielder would hit another later on, too, a two-run shot that had also followed an RBI double earlier by PCA — he was responsible for four of the five Cubs’ runs at this point. Chicago would go up 7-1 through the seventh, and then the Dodgers finally started to muster some offense. Third baseman Max Muncy hit a 413-foot three-run shot to cut the deficit to three in the eighth, and then Ohtani logged his 26th dinger of the season with a two-run shot later that same inning. The scoring stopped there, however, with Jacob Webb throwing a clean ninth inning for the Cubs to secure the W and the sweep. The Cubs are now 66-49, still 5.5 back of Milwaukee in the NL Central but 5.5 ahead for the top wild-card in the NL, suddenly within three games of the Dodgers’ record, which was the best in the league at the start of the month. Pretty good news for Chicago; less good for Los Angeles. As said, Atlanta now has as many wins as the Dodgers, and even a better record owing to one fewer defeat — the Braves’ seventh-straight win got them there, with Atlanta taking down the Marlins on Wednesday, 4-1, pushing their NL East lead to 8.5 games. The Braves scored all the runs they needed in the second, when third baseman Austin Riley hit a ground-rule double to score second baseman Ozzie Albies, which was followed by DH Drake Baldwin hitting a two-run single that scored Riley. Also of note in this W is that first baseman Matt Olson reached a major milestone. This was his 896th consecutive game played, giving him sole possession of the eighth-longest such streak in MLB history by passing Hall of Famer Stan Musial. Olson isn’t going to set the MLB record unless he never misses another game and also plays another roughly 1,800 in a row, but there is room to get into the top five, at least: next up is Joe Sewell, at 1,103 games, and Miguel Tejada is currently in fifth at 1,152 — that’s just 256 games from now for the 32-year-old Olson. This one was decided early, but that’s the kind of thing you don’t know until it’s over. The Red Sox scored in the top of the first when first baseman Willson Contreras singled in Wilyer Abreu to go up, 1-0. The White Sox would never end up scoring, but even if they had managed a couple, well, Boston’s center fielder had another way of crossing the plate: he hit his 20th dinger of the year and fourth in his last three games to put the Sox up 2-0… …and then Boston added another pair of runs from there. Red Sox starter Sonny Gray was on point, throwing six scoreless with eight strikeouts against two walks and three hits before a trio of relievers handled the rest. White Sox starter Sean Burke didn’t even do a poor job of things — he gave up two runs in 4 ⅔ — but with the lineup giving him zero support, he took the tough loss. Boston is now 11 games over .500, 5.5 back in the AL East and just one behind the Yankees for second in the division and the first wild-card in the junior circuit. It’s won 25 of its last 28 games and nine series in a row, the second-longest streak in franchise history, and is victorious in 16-straight games against first-place teams. It’s difficult to complain too much. First, there’s how dominant the Red Sox have been of late, but also consider what Wednesday was the anniversary of: the White Sox losing their 21st-straight game, en route to the modern single-season loss record, in 2024. In 2026, though, even after dropping two in a row to Boston, Chicago is in first place in the AL Central, and with a three-game lead over the Guardians. There are worse fates, is all. On Wednesday, the Guardians called up one of their top prospects, third baseman Angel Genao. And he sure delivered on his promise out of the gate: the 22-year-old gave starting third baseman José Ramírez a day off, and went 4-for-5 in his debut in his place. All four hits were singles, but he also scored a run and drove in another. He had a chance at the first-ever five-hit big-league debut, but flew out to the warning track in the ninth inning with what would have been the winning run on second. This ended up being important, too, as the Mets scored in the top of the 10th thanks to an RBI single by third baseman Bo Bichette — his one knock of the day in five trips to the plate. The Guardians failed to score in the bottom half of the frame, and New York got the come from behind win in extras. Jefry Yan made his big-league debut on Wednesday, after getting the call to fill one of the many post-deadline spots in the Mets’ bullpen. And he struck out pinch-hitter Angel Martínez, the first batter he faced in the majors, which merited a little bit of celebration. It’s all fun and dance moves until someone blows out a knee. But hey, just getting there at all is a dub for Yan — his pro career began back in 2014, and he even left baseball for years following Tommy John surgery. But he’s finally made it to the majors just before turning 30, a dozen years after he first got started on that path. Jump away, Yan. Did the Yankees lose? Yes, 3-1 to the Cardinals, who are still fighting for a postseason spot despite doing some deadline selling. But that sort of thing happens regularly, even to the best teams — see the above re: the Dodgers of late. More important in the long run and for New York’s chances the rest of the season is the below, this play by rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr. Look at that range! That’s going to help win some ballgames in the future, and is exactly the kind of thing the Yankees need to help out its starters and bullpens. That Lombard might end up being a pretty good hitter, too, is just that much better. Luis Arraez was a deadline acquisition, not a promotion like Lombard, but he’s set to make an impact on the season for the Phillies, too. Arraez drove in two runs in his Philadelphia debut on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, he both scored and drove in a run for the Phillies, thanks to a solo homer in the second inning. Now, Arraez can’t help the bullpen out, but that’s a whole other story. One we can get to… now. The Nationals defeated the Phillies 10-4 on Wednesday, but the game was actually a whole lot closer than that final score makes it appear. The game went into extra innings because the Phillies managed to tie the game up, 3-3, in the bottom of the seventh. In the 10th, both Washington and Philadelphia scored a run to make it 4-4. But in the top of the 11th, the Nats erupted for six runs. Center fielder Jacob Young walked to lead off the inning, giving Washington two baserunners and no outs. Shortstop CJ Abrams then tripled to center field to make it a 6-4 game, as Derek Hill just missed catching it and the ball went ricocheting into right — Hill would exit the game with an injury from crashing into the fence on the attempt. Pinch-hitter — and pitcher — Mike Mikolas then drove in another run with a sac bunt, and then Andrés Chaparro, who entered as a pinch-hitter earlier in the contest, made it 9-4 with a double. The final run came on a ground out by second baseman Nasim Nuñez — not pretty, but it counts all the same, and meant a six-run 11th for Washington. That was enough for the W, and it was a necessary one for Washington if the plan is to stay in wild-card contention: the Nats are 5.5 back after a 2-8 stretch and some selling off at the deadline. The Mariners defeated the Tigers 4-2 on Wednesday, which retroactively makes a run-saving effort like this one huge. Left fielder Randy Arozarena got up for this one. That was, at the least, going to drive in the runner on second. And it could have been worse, as there was also a runner on first and the wrong bounce could have meant a triple. And that’s if the ball hadn’t carried just a little further and gone over the fence for a three-run homer. The Mariners improved to 56-59 with the win over the Tigers, which, despite being a few games under .500, has them just one game back of a wild-card spot in the AL and 2.5 behind the Astros in the AL West. Just 2.5 behind the Astros, because Houston was defeated by the Blue Jays, 5-4. The game-winning hit came courtesy of infielder Ernie Clement to cap off a comeback. The Astros had gone up 3-0, but a three-run sixth from the Jays tied things up, where things stayed until Clement struck in the 10th. Houston managed to push a run across in the bottom of the 10th, but it needed two — Toronto, which both bought and sold at the trade deadline, picked up some ground in the wild-card race with the win thanks to losses by the Yankees, Guardians, Twins and Tigers, but the Jays are still staring up at all but three teams in the AL in the standings.