D-backs third baseman homered four times over the weekend in a sweep of St. Louis, surpassing Shohei Ohtani for the NL lead in home runs.
The Dodgers got swept by the Brewers, again, in this short week and coupled with the Padres taking two out of three in Washington D.C., the National League West race tightened up even further.
After a lead that swelled to nine games in the division on July 3, the Dodgers now lead the Padres by a mere 3½ games, the closest the NL West has been since June 15.
Before the real games got back underway again, several players in the division saw time in the All-Star Game in Atlanta. We already recapped the exploits of Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw last Tuesday, but here’s how the rest of the NL West did in the midsummer classic:
Manny Machado started at third base and struck out in both at-bats. His Padres teammate. Fernando Tatis Jr. walked, stole second base, and scored in the sixth inning. Reliever Jason Adam struck out his only batter faced in the second inning. Robert Suarez gave up two doubles while recording only one out in the ninth, and both scored to tie the game.
Hunter Goodman was the lone Rockies player in the All-Star Game, and caught the final five innings, and flew out in the bottom of the sixth inning.. In the eighth, Nationals outfielder James Wood pinch-hit for Goodman, getting all 20 NL position players into the game. But Goodman remained in the game to catch the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Diamondbacks saw both ends of the spectrum, as Corbin Carroll homered and Eugenio Suárez was hit by a pitch. Luckily, X-rays on Suárez’s left-hand were negative, but it did take him out of the first-ever swing-off tiebreaker.
Luckily for Suárez, his hand was just fine and he homered twice on both Saturday and Sunday to finish off a weekend sweep of St. Louis. Suárez now has a National-League-best 35 home runs on the season, one more than Ohtani, who homered twice over the weekend himself.
NL West standings
through July 20
Dodgers 58-42, – – –
Padres 54-45, 3½ GB
Giants 52-48, 6 GB
D-backs 50-50, 8 GB
Rockies, 24-75, 33½ GB