{"id":425295,"date":"2026-08-06T09:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425295\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T09:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T09:08:24","slug":"shohei-ohtani-pete-crow-armstrong-put-on-show-as-nl-mvp-talk-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425295\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong put on show as NL MVP talk heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHICAGO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dodgers<\/a> third base coach Dino Ebel<\/a> went directly to Shohei Ohtani<\/a>\u2019s competition for NL MVP with his gripe.<\/p>\n

Ebel, who coached Cubs star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong<\/a> with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic<\/a> this year, gave him grief for serving as the designated hitter on Wednesday. He couldn\u2019t play center field every day?<\/p>\n

Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong had just traded leadoff home runs, so Crow-Armstrong told reporters that he shot back with: \u201cWell, it took your guy 10 pitches, it only took me one.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was exaggerating slightly. Ohtani\u2019s leadoff homer came on the seventh pitch of the at-bat against Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga. And that, of course, wasn\u2019t really how Crow-Armstrong felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cA [seven]-pitch at-bat to start the game and finish it off with a 110 [mph] ball at 20 degrees is pretty ridiculous,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

The National League MVP race transformed into a head-to-head showdown between the frontrunners at Wrigley Field on Wednesday, as the Dodgers fell to the Cubs 7-6.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of a season, there\u2019s a lot of ups and downs,\u201d Ohtani, a four-time MVP, said through interpreter Will Ireton. \u201cIt\u2019s too early to think about that. So in a way for me it\u2019s more important for the team to win and for me to contribute to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Crow-Armstrong played along with the MVP talk, he came around to a similar sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be crazy to say that I don\u2019t want to win an MVP, but if we\u2019re talking about having priorities straight, I think mine are pretty straight,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not on the forefront of my mind. It\u2019s fun to joke about and it\u2019s fun to acknowledge and I think it\u2019s absolutely OK to pay attention to. But it\u2019s not following me up to the plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you guys want to talk about all this back and forth, like, I really should go get in the lab and start pitching. I really should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani was considered the runaway MVP favorite early in the year, while his pitching performance also put him in the Cy Young conversation. But his extended absence from the mound (left knee issue) and Crow-Armstrong\u2019s contributions on offense and defense have made the race more interesting.<\/p>\n

Crow-Armstrong entered Wednesday leading the majors in fWAR (7.5), followed by Ohtani (6.4).<\/p>\n

\"Chicago <\/p>\n

Chicago Cubs designated hitter Pete Crow-Armstrong drops the bat after hitting his second home run against the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

(Jessie Alcheh \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put, just having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as [Ohtani] feels, it\u2019s awesome and it\u2019s a nice nod,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cIt\u2019s cool. But \u2026 I would feel much more accomplished taking them (the Dodgers) down at some point. I want to see this group (the Cubs) in October because I think it\u2019ll be a dangerous, dangerous group in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> irked Cubs fans a week and a half ago when, asked to evaluate Ohtani\u2019s season overall, he said he\u2019ll still be the NL MVP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t followed the race,\u201d Roberts said before the game Wednesday. \u201cI have followed what Pete\u2019s doing, and he\u2019s figured some things out with the bat. \u201cHe\u2019s having a heck of a year. And he has rightfully made it a lot closer than most people expected. He\u2019s had a tremendous season.\u201d<\/p>\n

That continued in the finale of the three-game series, for Crow-Armstrong and Ohtani.<\/p>\n

Ohtani, struck first, notching the 32nd leadoff homer of his career and 29th as a Dodger, breaking a tie with Davey Lopes<\/a> for the second-most in franchise history, behind Mookie Betts<\/a> (32).<\/p>\n

In the bottom half of the inning, Crow-Armstrong matched Ohtani with a tying blast.<\/p>\n

The next inning, he delivered a two-run double, and in the fourth, he mashed a two-run blast off the right-field scoreboard to put the Cubs up 5-1.<\/p>\n

Not to be outdone, Ohtani led off the fifth inning with a single, but the Dodgers failed to score. Then in the eighth, he made it his first multi-homer game of the season, with a two-run shot that trimmed the Cubs\u2019 lead to 7-6.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great player,\u201d Ohtani said of Crow-Armstrong. \u201cBut I\u2019m really focused on myself on the hitting side of things right now, really working towards hopefully getting back on the mound and working on that side of the game as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s timeline back to the mound is nebulous at this point. Roberts didn\u2019t have a specific day circled to resume playing catch, and Ohtani didn\u2019t provide one, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting pretty good day by day,\u201d Ohtani said of his knee. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell at this point what the schedule is going to look like. First I need to do [weighted plyo balls], then go into long toss, then go into a bullpen progression. Rather than rush the progression of this I would rather make sure we\u2019re headed in the right direction. But making sure we\u2019re taking the right steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 rotation depth means he doesn\u2019t necessarily need to build up to a full starter\u2019s workload by the end of the year. Ohtani said he\u2019d leave the timing of his progression up to the front office.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny innings we get from him are bonuses, given he\u2019s a two-way player,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s one inning, two innings, three innings, I\u2019m not too concerned about the timeline. \u2026 I certainly see him as a starter, but how much he could give us, to then have somebody [piggybacking] behind him, that we don\u2019t know yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freddie Freeman pulled<\/p>\n

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman<\/a> left the game in the bottom of the fifth inning after a pitch hit his right hand. But X-rays came back negative, Roberts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously didn\u2019t come out of that at-bat because I knew it hit my bat as well,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cIt hit bat, then hand and pinched my hand onto the bat. Next pitch, I swung. I could swing, and I swung again. As the adrenaline wore off, pain got a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman said he expects to be ready to return to the lineup by the Dodgers\u2019 next game, against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel went directly to Shohei Ohtani\u2019s competition for NL MVP with his gripe.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[27971,11585,217,426,423,4468,48,52,51,169571,47,50,49,10252,169570,91630,424,278,422,316,72],"class_list":["post-425295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bat","tag-cubs","tag-day","tag-dodgers","tag-game","tag-inning","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-leadoff-homer","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mound","tag-nl-mvp-talk","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-roberts","tag-season","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-wednesday","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}