5 days ago
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CHICAGO (AP) — Pete Crow-Armstrong was terrific once again. Same for Shohei Ohtani.
It was quite a day in an increasingly compelling race for the NL MVP award.
Crow-Armstrong homered twice and drove in four runs to help the Chicago Cubs beat Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-6 on Wednesday for a sweep of their three-game series. But Ohtani also went deep twice and finished with three hits.
“I do think they were going toe to toe,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You know, obviously, there’s a lot of talk about those two guys being the front-runner for the MVP. They both showed up, and you can see that they hear what’s being said about them, and that was fun for the fans certainly.”
Crow-Armstrong, 24, is Chicago’s regular center fielder, but he served as the designated hitter for the series finale against LA. That gave him an opportunity to take a closer look at Ohtani’s brilliance at the plate.
“I just enjoy watching him play baseball,” Crow-Armstrong said. “So I guess today for me what was cool was just getting to watch him from a different angle and not worrying about going and trying to catch balls that are hit at 1,000 miles an hour.”
Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong exchanged leadoff shots in the first inning. It was Ohtani’s 11th leadoff homer this season and No. 35 for his career. It was Crow-Armstrong’s fourth career leadoff drive —...
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