Freddie Freeman homered twice, Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages also went deep and the Los Angeles Dodgers rolled to their 12th National League West title in 13 seasons with an 8-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday afternoon in Phoenix.
Freeman led off a four-run second inning with a 411-foot homer. He added a two-run shot to cap a four-run fourth inning that concluded the game’s scoring.
Ohtani’s two-run homer in the fourth was his 54th, giving him 108 in his first two seasons with the Dodgers. He is one short of Alex Rodriguez (Texas Rangers, 2001-02) for the second-most by a player in his first two seasons with an organization. Babe Ruth had 113 for the New York Yankees in 1920-21.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-8) gave up four singles in six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts and two walks. He finished the regular season with 201 strikeouts and has allowed just three runs and 11 hits over his last five starts covering 34 innings.
Enrique Hernandez had two hits and scored twice and Mookie Betts drove in two runs for the Dodgers (90-69), who have won six of eight and will have home-field advantage in a best-of-three wild card series that begins Tuesday.
The Dodgers close the season with a three-game series at Seattle, which has clinched the American League West title and would clinch a first-round bye with one more win. The Mariners play Colorado Thursday.
Ketel Marte’s double in the eighth was the only extra-base hit of the Diamondacks’ five hits. They have lost four of seven.
Arizona (80-79) dropped one game behind the Cincinnati Reds (81-78) and two behind the New York Mets (82-77) in the chase for the third NL wild-card spot.
The Reds, who beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1 on Thursday, hold the tiebreaker over both the D-backs and Mets. The Reds also own the tiebreaker if all three are tied. The Reds finish the season at Milwaukee and the Mets close at the Miami Marlins.
Arizona opener Jalen Beeks (5-3) gave up Freeman’s homer in the second before being replaced by Nabil Crismatt, who gave up seven hits and seven runs (five earned) in three innings.
Pages followed Freeman’s first homer with his 27th homer. Betts had a two-out, two-run single for a 4-0 lead.
Arizona had one runner on base in the second inning and two on in the third against Yamamoto, who lowered his ERA to 2.40. That ranks second in the NL to Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes.
–Field Level Media
