RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The Cubs won Wednesday afternoon, 7-6 , to complete a three-game sweep over the two-time defending champion Dodgers . Much of the national focus in the series was on two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal making his debut in a Dodgers uniform .
Much of the focus after the Cubs' sweep will be framed around the Dodgers' six-game losing streak, but also on the heated National League MVP race between Shohei Ohtani and Pete Crow-Armstrong . They slugged two home runs apiece on Wednesday and are now tied atop the MVP odds at FanDuel at -110.
Ohtani, a four-time MVP, including the last two seasons with the Dodgers, was the favorite when the series began. But Crow-Armstrong's thumbprints were all over this series sweep for the Cubs, and he is hot on the trail of Ohtani, who continued to star for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers started the top of the first with two singles and then a three-run homer. It only took five pitches. In the bottom of the first, Crow-Armstrong singled and then scored on a Seiya Suzuki home run. He later walked and scored, meaning he got on base twice and scored two runs in a 10-5 Cubs victory. That was the least noise he made in the entire series.
Again, all eyes were on Skubal here. He struck out Crow-Armstrong to start the bottom of the first. With a 1-1 game in the bottom of the third, however, Crow-Armstrong singled, stole second and helped make Skubal sweat a little bit. In the seventh, with the Cubs clinging to a 2-1 lead and a runner on second with two outs, Crow-Armstrong came through with an RBI single. He then stole second and then scored on a single. Overall, he was 2 for 4 with an RBI, run and stolen base.
Ohtani led off the game with a home run. Crow-Armstrong matched him in the bottom half of the first. It was a really fun showcase of the two NL MVP frontrunners.
That was the first time in MLB history that each team hit a leadoff home run with a lefty facing a left-handed pitcher. How about that?
In the bottom of the second, the Cubs had a 2-1 lead and Crow-Armstrong came to the plate with a runner on second and two out. He doubled home the run to make it 3-1. That was the score next time the Cubs' leadoff man came to the plate, this time with a runner on and two out. He homered again.
Through four innings, he was 3 for 3 with two home runs, a double, four RBI and two runs scored in a 6-1 Cubs lead.
The Dodgers would make things very interesting with a five-run eighth, cutting the Cubs' lead to 7-6 on a two-run shot from none other than Ohtani.
Both Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong went deep twice in this one, making it the third time in MLB history that both leadoff hitters had multiple home runs. The previous times saw Brad Miller and Ben Zobrist do it on Aug. 13, 2013, and Chuck Knoblauch and Tony Phillips pull it off on June 5, 1994 (via Sarah Langs ).
In the series, Crow-Armstrong went 6 for 13 with five RBI, five runs, a double, two home runs and two stolen bases. Since we appear to be keeping score now, Ohtani went 6 for 13 with two home runs, three RBI and three runs.
Overall this season, here's a side-by-side of Ohtani vs. Crow-Armstrong by the stats on offense.
After this comes the tricky part. Ohtani is a DH who also pitches like an ace, though he's been injured enough to prevent him from pitching for a bit. Meanwhile, Crow-Armstrong is generally rated as the best defender in baseball as he patrols center field at Wrigley. Ohtani on the mound is 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and 95 strikeouts against 26 walks in 85 ⅔ innings in his 14 starts. Crow-Armstrong has played 991 ⅔ innings in center. He leads the majors (all positions) in defensive WAR , outs above average , runs prevented and fielding run value . The gap is wide in some of those measures.
The best tool we have for estimating the combined value of multi-skilled players like this is WAR. In Fangraphs' version, Crow-Armstrong had a 7.4 to 6.3 lead entering Wednesday. In the baseball-reference.com version, the Crow-Armstrong lead entering Wednesday was 7.0 to 6.2. As both were huge on Wednesday, the margin is likely the same.
Entering Wednesday's game, Ohtani had been the betting favorite for MVP all season and pre-season. During the game, though, the odds on FanDuel briefly flipped to put Crow-Armstrong as the betting favorite over Ohtani after this second home run.
But wait, after Ohtani hit his second homer of the game, the odds moved again.
Ohtani was such a heavy favorite a few months ago that some books didn't even offer the bet. He was -115 before the season even started, with no one else having shorter odds than Juan Soto at +800. Crow-Armstrong was at +6000 during an early-season slump.
As for the teams, the Dodgers lead the NL West at 69-46. The Cubs hold the top NL wild card with a 66-49 record. The Cubs won the season series four games to two. There are no more regular-season games scheduled between the two, but perhaps we'll see them square off again in October.
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