Shohei Ohtani, the Angels' two-way superstar, recently hit a career milestone. Ohtani recently hit his 100th career home run. He hit the following home run on Saturday against A's rookie Adam Oller.
By hitting that home run, Ohtani became just the third Japanese player to hit 100 or more home runs in MLB history. Having joined Hideki Matsui (175) and Ichiro Suzuki (117), he now ranks third with those names.
In addition, Ohtani is now the only player in MLB history to have hit at least 100 home runs and to have struck out at least 250 times.
If you want to relive all 100 of Ohtani's home runs in the U.S. majors, then this color-television footage is the way to go:
His performance at the plate and on the mound this season got off to a slower start, but he's been looking like his old self as of late. Ohtani's Angels remain firmly in the AL West title race in the early going.
A score of 1-0 eked out the Pirates over the Reds on Sunday, and they did so despite getting no hits. The Pirates are among the very few teams that have never had a hit:
Reds rookie right-hander Hunter Greene held the Pirates hitless for 7 1/3 innings, and then reliever Art Warren ended the game. The Pirates drew three walks during that eighth inning, and Ke'Bryan Hayes then hit a grounder to second that appeared to end the game.
As a result, Alejo Lopez fumbled the transfer, and Hayes beat his throw for an RBI force-out. There was no official no-hitter because the Reds didn't throw at least nine hitless innings.
The no-hitter would have been the third of the 2022 season. On April 29, the Mets pitched a combined no-hitter against the Phillies, while rookie Angels pitcher Reid Detmers held the Rays without a hit on May 10.
The Astros' 11-game winning streak ended on Saturday when they lost to the Nationals. Nevertheless, Houston rebounded on Sunday with a 7-0 shutout win, which means they've now won 12 of their last 13 games.
Dusty Baker's club is on pace to win 106 games, which would tie them with the Angels atop the AL West standings. With his age-39 campaign, Justin Verlander has an ERA of 1.38 after tossing five scoreless frames. Josh Altuve homered for the seventh time this season.
Currently, the Astros have just begun an accommodating stretch of their schedule that will see them play 28 of 31 games against losing teams.
As of Friday, the Mets were the only team in baseball without a series loss. This is quite an accomplishment. Seeing things such as the Dodgers losing to the Pirates, the Yankees losing to the Orioles and the Brewers losing to the Reds only emphasizes the point that it is incredibly difficult to win a series in Major League Baseball.
Before taking on the Mariners in Citi Field for the weekend slate, the Mets were 9-0-1 in series in 2022. They lost two of three to the Mariners. As it turned out, the Mets were right there, too, losing 2-1 Friday night, winning on Saturday, and losing 8-7 on Sunday.
Furthermore, the game ended with the bases loaded on a pitch outside the strike zone on Sunday. The game would have been tied had Pete Alonso held up his check swing, but he clearly went and the umpiring crew got the call right.
This is the first series loss for the 2022 Mets. Mets at Cardinals (four games starting Monday): This four-game series at Citi Field features two contenders. Across the way, the second-place Cardinals are working hard to make up ground on the NL Central-leading Brewers.
The Mets have the largest division lead in all of baseball. In addition to the intrigue of this series, when these teams last met earlier this season, a number of batsmen were hit and benches were cleared. This should make for exciting matches.
A three-game series begins Friday between the Giants and the Padres, in the toughest division in all of baseball. A total of 26 games are above .500 for the NL West teams against non-division opponents as of this writing. Considering we've only been in the league for just over a month, that's quite an accomplishment.
As a result, two of the best teams in the NL West, the Padres and Giants, will meet next weekend in San Fran for a three-game series. The Giants won both games earlier in the season in San Diego, outscoring the Friars by a margin of 17-7.
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