SHOHEI OHTANI POWERS DODGERS SWEEP OF BRAVES

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani tied career highs with four hits and two home runs, and James Paxton had his sharpest and longest start of the seasonin the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Braves on Sunday at Dodger Stadium, finishing off a three-game sweep of Atlanta.

The Dodgers have won 11 of their last 13 games.

Mookie Betts drew his MLB-best 28th walk of the season to open the first inning, then Ohtani homered for a second straight day, this time with a 412-foot bomb to straightaway center field.

Max Fried followed by hitting Freddie Freeman with a pitch, but after that was a tough customer for the next five innings. Ohtani singled twice more off Fried, and the first three hits against the left-hander. His Dodgers teammates were hitless in their first 16 at-bats on Sunday until Teoscar Hernández joined the party with a two-run home run in the sixth.

Ohtani added a moon shot against lefty A.J. Minter in the eighth inning for his first multi-homer game of the season and 17th of his career. Ohtani’s four hits also tied a career high (his seventh such game).

On the season, Ohtani is now hitting .364/.426/.685, and leads the majors in OPS (1.111), wRC+ (212), slugging percentage, batting average (tied with Alec Bohm), hits (52), home runs (10, tied), and extra-base hits (25).

Command center

After gutting through his first five starts with very little command, Paxton pounded the strike zone all day for his longest start to date with the Dodgers. Among the 125 major league pitchers with at least 25 innings entering Sunday, Paxton ranked 122nd with a 58.1-percent strike rate, but against the Braves he threw 58 of his 84 pitches for strikes (69 percent).

The wildness in April was so out of character for Paxton, whose 7.8-percent career walke rate was slightly better than the MLB rate during his 11 seasons (8.3 percent). His highest walk rate before this year was 9.8 percent way back in 2015 (excluding his one walk in five batters faced in 2021). But through Paxton’s first five starts his walk rate was a whopping 19.3 percent, with a major-league high 22 walks in his 25⅔ innings.

Paxton on Sunday issued a nine-pitch walk to Austin Riley with two outs in the first inning and a one-out walk to Ronald Acuña Jr. in the sixth. But Paxton didn’t allow a run until a solo shot by Marcell Ozuna in the seventh. At 6⅔ innings, Sunday was Paxton’s longest start since last June 30 when he was with the Red Sox.

The defense helped Paxton as well. Kiké Hernández made a strong throw from short left field on Ozuna’s grounder to third base in the second inning, and Freddie Freeman made an incredible dig at first base to finish the play. Mookie Betts and Gavin Lux turned a nifty double play in the third inning. Teoscar Hernández in the seventh inning threw out Matt Olson trying to stretch a double out of a ball hit to the right field wall.

Welcome back

Blake Treinen’s first major league game since Game 2 of the 2022 NLDS saw him called into the eighth inning with a three-run lead, facing 9-1-2 in Atlanta’s lineup. He retired the side in order, including a strikeout of Jarred Kelenic to open the frame.

Treinen is the 22nd different pitcher used by the Dodgers this season, and Walker Buehler will be the 23rd when he starts on Monday. In 2023, when the Dodgers tied a (2021) team record by using 39 pitchers all season, they used 20 different pitchers in the first 37 games of the season.

Sometimes, payday is Sunday

Paxton earned the first of his contract bonuses based on games started, getting $600,000 for making his sixth start of the season. He can earn another $600,000 for each of eight, 10, 12, and 16 starts, plus $1 million if he makes 18 starts this season.

The left-hander already earned a $2 million bonus for being on the active roster on March 28, in addition to his $4 million salary and $3 million signing bonus.

Sunday particulars

Home runs: Shohei Ohtani 2 (10), Teoscar Hernández (8); Marcell Ozuna (10)

WP — James Paxton (4-0): 6⅔ IP, 5 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts

LP — Max Fried (2-1): 7 IP, 4 hits, 4 runs, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts

Up next

Walker Buehler makes his first major league start in 696 days on Monday night (7:10 p.m.; SportsNet LA, MLB Network). Right-hander Roddery Muñoz starts for the Marlins.

2024-05-05T22:30:42Z dg43tfdfdgfd