LA has 12 steals without getting caught in four games against Miami this season, and 14 steals in 31 games against everyone else.
The Dodgers, at least before Hyeseong Kim was called up, are more of an opportunistic stealing club.
They’ll take chances when they see them, and last week in Los Angeles they picked Marlins pitching and catching apart with 10 steals in 10 tries during the three-game series. The Dodgers haven’t had more than three steals in any other series this season, and stole 14 total bases in their 31 games not against Miami.
Four of the 10 steals last week came against Sandy Alcantara on April 29, and they got him for two more stolen bases on Monday in Miami.
Shohei Ohtani was first, getting his team-leading 10th steal of the season in the third inning.
His penchant for running will almost certainly abate once he ramps up his pitching rehab, but as of now he got to 10 steals eight games faster than last season, when Ohtani stole his 10th base in the Dodgers’ 43rd game, and finished the season with 59 steals.
Kim is the more likely of the two to be the volume stealer, and he’s already stolen a base in each of his first two major league games in which he had a chance to do so. Kim on Monday followed his first major league hit with a steal of second base.
“I was the leadoff man [that inning],” Kim told Kirsten Watson on SportsNet LA after the game, “so my mindset was to get on base.”
Like Ohtani before him, Kim scored on a home run after the stolen base.
Kim now has two steals in three games in the majors after stealing 13 bases in 28 games with Triple-A Oklahoma City. He has yet to be caught. He joins an eclectic group of only five Dodgers in the modern era with two stolen bases within their first three career games:
- Sheldon Lejeune (1911)
- Casey Stengel (1912)
- Scott Schebler (2015)
- José Peraza (2015)
- Hyeseong Kim (2025)
The Dodgers now have 12 steals in four games against the Marlins this season, with multiple steals in all four games. They stole multiple bases in three out of their 31 other games. Two more games against Miami remain.