Padres tie Dodgers atop NL West in bizarre day for Shohei Ohtani

It was a memorable day for Shohei Ohtani, and a successful one for the San Diego Padres.

With a 5-1 win over the San Francisco Giants, the Padres tied the Los Angeles Dodgers atop the NL West, in which they once trailed by as many as 8.5 games on July 2. It’s the first time San Diego has held any share of first place since May 10.

Per MLB.com’s A.J. Cassavell, it’s also the latest in the season the Padres have held a share of first place since Sept. 25, 2010. Both teams hold a record of 68-52

The Padres beat the Giants with homers from Jose Iglesias and Jackson Merrill, plus a strong day for trade deadline acquisition Nestor Cortes and their three-All-Star bullpen. After a two-run second-inning, they didn’t trail for the rest of the game.

It was a more eventful night down in Anaheim, where the Dodgers lost in 10 innings against Ohtani’s former team. With the game tied 5-5 in the sixth inning, Ohtani lined into a triple play to wipe out a scoring opportunity. The liner was perfectly placed for Angels shortstop Zach Neto to haul it in, stop on second base, then throw out Dalton Rushing at first base.

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It was the eighth triple play in Angels history. Ohtani was visibly stunned as the Angels ran off the field, while Rushing appeared to be in some pain after an awkward lunge, though he remained in the game.

Per Statcast, the ball was 86.8 mph off Ohtani’s bat and carried a .480 xBA (meaning a 48% chance at becoming a hit based off its exit velocity and launch angle). Theoretically, balls like the ones Ohtani hit have about a 50/50 chance at becoming a hit, which would have likely yielded a run for the Dodgers.

Instead, Neto, a defensive standout at short, made one of the best plays of his career.

Ohtani found redemption in the ninth, though, clubbing a go-ahead homer against his former team, his 43rd long ball of the season.

That would be the end of the good for the Dodgers. New closer Alex Vesia allowed the Angels to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth and needed to escape a bases-loaded situation just to send the game to extra innings, which didn’t go the Dodgers’ way. They failed to score the ghost runner in the top of the 10th, then Jo Adell put them away in the bottom of the inning.

It was already an eventful day for Ohtani, as it was widely reported in the morning that he and his agent Nez Balelo were sued over a Hawaiian real estate deal gone bad, in which Balelo allegedly clashed with the project’s developers after Ohtani signed an endorsement deal in 2023.

Much like the Seattle Mariners tying the Houston Astros on Tuesday, the NL West has now become a dead sprint between two teams, one a multi-World Series-winning division standard-bearer and the other an upstart that has been trying to break through for years.

With 42 games remaining on each of their schedules, the Padres have the momentum but the Dodgers are still favored to come out on top, with BetMGM having them as -325 favorites for the division as of Tuesday night.

That could change quickly though, especially with the Dodgers scheduled to host a three-game series against the Padres this weekend.