As Major League Baseball enters the final week of its regular season, let’s identify the rarefied and the rotten, those teams, players and managers who over six months separated themselves from the pack, some heroically, others horrendously.
Five up. Five down. Excuse us for a tilt toward Los Angeles since we are charged first and foremost with covering this City of Angels and Dodgers.
UP
1. Shohei Ohtani. 50-50 already seems so rear-view mirror. The Dodgers’ designated-hitter deluxe has 53 home runs and 55 stolen bases only four days after he became the first player in history to reach 50 of each. Is 60-60 attainable?
“This guy is doing things no one can believe, and for all we know, he could end up at 60-60,” former Dodgers slugger Shawn Green told The Times.
Ohtani seems to steal second or third base any time he pleases, so pilfering five more is entirely plausible. But hitting seven home runs in the Dodgers’ last six games — they host the San Diego Padres in a three-game series beginning Tuesday, then travel to Denver for a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies — is unlikely even for the expected runaway National League Most Valuable Player.
But Ohtani is going to hit at home-run happy Coors Field, so anything is possible.
Should the Dodgers win two of three against San Diego and clinch the NL West title, manager Dave Roberts might even insist Ohtani shut down the base stealing to lessen the chance of injury ahead of the postseason.
Going into Monday, Ohtani leads the NL in home runs, runs batted in (123), runs scored (128), slugging percentage (.640), on-base-plus-slugging percentage (186), total bases (391) and plate appearances (703). He is all but certain of becoming the only player besides Hall of Famer Frank Robinson to be named MVP in both leagues — Ohtani was American League MVP with the Angels in 2023 and 2021.
Read more: Plaschke: Nothing 50-50 about it. Shohei Ohtani should be unanimous NL MVP
2. Homers/steals combo plate. Although Ohtani’s feats dwarf those of anyone else, it should be noted that several young stars have quietly compiled impressive combinations of power and speed. Most noteworthy is Cincinnati Reds’ Elly De La Cruz, 22, who became the first shortstop in MLB history to hit 25 homers and steal 65 bases in the same season.
Cleveland Guardians six-time All-Star third baseman José Ramírez is three homers shy of becoming the seventh player ever to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases. Besides Ohtani, the exclusive club includes Ronald Acuna (2023), Alfonso Soriano (2006), Alex Rodriguez (1998), Barry Bonds (1996) and Jose Canseco (1988).
Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., 24, joined the far less exclusive 30-30 club — it’s been accomplished 67 times — in 2023 and repeated it this season. The 20-20 club would need a banquet hall to hold a meeting, but young Angels shortstop Zach Neto, 23, is on an upward trajectory with 23 homers and 30 stolen bases in his first full big-league season.
Long Beach State and Cypress High product Jarrin Duran, Jazz Chisholm, Corbin Carroll and CJ Abrams each have at least 20 home runs and 30 stolen bases.
Read more: Shaikin: Beat L.A.? The Padres could. Here’s how AJ Preller and Co. made that possible
3. Division champions. The Dodgers’ three-game lead over the Padres is the closest race in any of the six MLB divisions. The Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central and the Guardians in the AL Central have clinched titles, and the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, the New York Yankees in the AL East and the Houston Astros in the AL West all enjoy at least five-game leads with six to play.
As for home-field advantage in the championship series, the Dodgers hold a one-game edge over the Phillies in the NL and the Yankees hold a 2½-game lead over the Guardians.
4. Wild-card races. In the AL, the Baltimore Orioles have all but clinched the top wild card, but the second and third spots are a scramble among the Royals, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins from the Central and the Seattle Mariners from the West.
Detroit has the hot hand, having made up five games in little more than a week to catch Kansas City, which has lost seven in a row. Minnesota is one game back, and Seattle is one game behind the Twins.
In the NL, the Padres hold a three-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Mets for the top wild-card berth. Lurking two games behind Arizona and New York are the Atlanta Braves, and they begin a three-game series against the Mets on Tuesday.
5. Dodgers attendance. Sellouts are all but certain for the Dodgers’ three remaining home games, which would bring the season total to approximately 3,945,000, their second-highest attendance (they drew 3,974,309 in 2019).
The Dodgers have never reached 4 million spectators in a season, although they have exceeded 3.7 million 10 times since 2013 and 14 times since 2006.
Read more: Angels’ four-run rally in ninth inning just enough to beat the Astros
DOWN
1. The Angels. Granted, they aren’t Chicago White Sox bad, but the Angels are on pace to post the worst record in franchise history. That is very bad. They are 63-93 with six games to play, and rock bottom for these perennial underachievers is 95 losses in 1980 and 1968.
The Angels need to win two games this week to avoid becoming the first in the 64-year history of the franchise to post a winning percentage under .400.
2. Mike Trout. For a player who became a Hall of Fame lock before age 30, Trout suddenly seems awfully old. He’s played in 29 games this season and only 319 in the last five years because of injuries. His lifetime batting average has dipped to .299, and milestones such as 500 home runs and 3,000 hits that once seemed a cinch are now long shots or downright impossible.
He has six years left on a 12-year, $426.5-million contract that includes a no-trade clause. He’s gone from three-time MVP and three-time MVP runner-up to albatross.
Read more: Shaikin: How might another lost season for Mike Trout impact his Hall of Fame candidacy?
Yet there is reason for hope. Trout, 33, is only one year older than Aaron Judge and is one year younger than Freddie Freeman. He told reporters a week ago that he’s willing to move from center field to a corner spot, with days as designated hitter sprinkled in, to keep him as healthy as possible.
“Ultimately, my goal is to be in that batter’s box, in the field every single day,” Trout said. “Whether that’s moving to a corner or DHing more, that’s something that I’ll leave it up to the front office to come up with a plan. Where I’m at and what’s happened the last few years, I’m definitely going to try to explore every option that can keep me out there.”
3. The White Sox. The best thing the Angels have going in their quest to avoid the worst record in franchise history is that they play the worst team in baseball history in a three-game series beginning Tuesday. The White Sox equaled the benchmark for futility Sunday when they dropped their 120th game, the same number of defeats endured by the 1962 Mets.
The Mets had a built-in excuse: They were a first-year expansion team. The White Sox began play in 1901. This might not be the biggest embarrassment in franchise history — it’s all but impossible to go lower than the 1919 Black Sox Scandal — but it’s a lock for second.
Read more: Column: As Ohtani chased 50-50, White Sox vs. Angels was the most depressing game ever
4. The Hot Seat. David Bell was fired Sunday as manager of the Reds, a team with loads of young talent and a sub-.500 record. Two managers were let go in August: Pedro Grifol of the White Sox and Scott Servais of the Mariners. Who might be next?
Well, Skip Schumaker all but gave a farewell speech after his Miami Marlins lost their final home game of the season.
“It’s kind of a weird moment, personally, in my career,” he told reporters. “Extremely grateful that I was given an opportunity to manage the Miami Marlins even if it was a couple years.”
Bud Black, a respected manager as there is in the game, might be gone after the Rockies finish last in the NL West for the third consecutive year. Black led Colorado to the playoffs in his first two seasons but it has been under .500 the last six years in a row.
The Cardinals could part ways with Oliver Marmol, who led them to the NL Central title in 2022 but followed that with a disastrous 2023 campaign and a ho-hum 2024.
Read more: Shaikin: Baseball teams are abandoning cities across California. How some are fighting back
5. Oakland to Las Vegas. The Athletics will play their last game in Oakland on Thursday against the Texas Rangers before finishing the season with a series in Seattle. After 57 years and more than 9,000 games in Oakland, the A’s are off to Las Vegas by way of Sacramento, where they will play until their new sin city stadium is ready for occupancy in 2028.
“It just feels like a punch in the gut for them to be leaving,” A’s fan Alicia Valenzuela told a Bay Area television station.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
