he hit two home runs Thursday<\/a> against his former club, the Cincinnati Reds. In 114 regular-season games for the Reds last season, he did not hit any home runs.<\/p>\nEspinal also had two hits in the Dodgers\u2019 game this week against Mexico\u2019s WBC team.<\/p>\n
Manager Dave Roberts said it was hard to see a scenario where Espinal would not land a reserve spot on the Opening Day roster. And that was\u00a0before\u00a0the multi-homer game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey already have a family here, and the question that I asked myself, \u2018How can I add to this team, to a back-to-back champion, as a baseball player?\u2019\u201d said Espinal, who has already played at first base, third base and shortstop. \u201cSo that\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been working on every day, and something that I will keep working till the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Espinal, 31, has played in just two playoff games in his six-year major league career, in 2022 and 2023 when he was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. But he does know what the opening salvo of a championship run looks like.<\/p>\n
He was in the Reds\u2019 dugout when his team was swept in a brief two-game wild-card series at Dodger Stadium last fall. He did not play in either game as the Dodgers advanced with 10-5 and 8-4 victories.<\/p>\n
A free agent this past offseason, Espinal still had not committed to the next stage of his career when MLB teams opened spring training camps last month.<\/p>\n
But by Feb. 16, just as the Dodgers revealed that utility-man supreme Tommy Edman would be unable to return by Opening Day after offseason ankle surgery, Espinal agreed to a minor-league deal. It became official one day later.<\/p>\n
The signing was less than a week after utility man Kik\u00e9 Hernandez agreed to return, but the fan favorite also will not be ready to play by the season opener after offseason left elbow surgery.<\/p>\n
The Espinal transaction went almost undetected. It is making plenty of noise now.<\/p>\n
And Espinal\u2019s resurrection has a familiar feel about it.<\/p>\n
Mechanical adjustments have tapped into more bat speed for Espinal, who had exit velocities of 105.8 mph and 103.6 mph on his two home runs Thursday, according to MLB Statcast. While he had a maximum exit velocity of 107.4 mph last year, his average was 86.5 mph.<\/p>\n
Espinal was on the sweet spot of the bat just 31.3% of the time last season, the lowest of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say being more aggressive,\u201d Espinal said when asked what is different with this spring\u2019s swing. \u201cAnd actually, my swing path, make sure that it\u2019s there, make sure it\u2019s straight to the ball and not open up and all that stuff. But it\u2019s a constant work that we\u2019ve been doing every day. And so far, it\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Muncy and Chris Taylor famously turned more aggressive swings into significant production after arriving in the Dodgers\u2019 organization. But neither had an All-Star Game appearance to their credit like Espinal did in 2022 with the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
Muncy is one of the players Espinal referenced as he talked about what has stood out in less than three weeks of wearing a Dodgers uniform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see Mookie (Betts), when you see Freddie (Freeman), Muncy, I played with (Teoscar Hernandez), and (see) one of the best hitters in the game (in Shohei Ohtani), you have it in the locker room,\u201d Espinal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou also want to pick their brain. You also want to ask questions. You also want to see how they work, how they go about their business. And to me, I think that\u2019s the most important part of it, just to learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
SHO TIME IN TOKYO<\/p>\n
Shohei Ohtani delivered in Japan\u2019s World Baseball Classic opener<\/a> when he hit a grand slam during the second inning of a 13-0 victory over Taiwan. Ohtani finished the game 3 for 5 with a run scored and five RBIs.<\/p>\nThe last time Ohtani played for Japan in the WBC, he struck out his MLB teammate at the time, the Angels\u2019 Mike Trout, to give Japan the 2023 title. The last time he played on Japanese soil was in the Dodgers\u2019 two-game series against the Chicago Cubs to open last season.<\/p>\n
World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto went 2\u2154 scoreless innings with three walks as Japan\u2019s starting pitcher.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Staff writer Bill Plunkett contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GLENDALE, Ariz. \u2014 If you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, join \u2019em \u2013 although for Santiago Espinal, his chance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,363,99],"class_list":["post-507874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}