Hey friends-

I went live with former political director of the California Republican Party yesterday to rip the Dodgers for announcing they will go visit Donald Trump in the White House the same week that Trump shared a racist video depicting Michelle and Barack Obama as monkeys on his Truth Social account. Madrid, a Dodger fan, wholeheartedly agreed.

The Dodgers will also be visiting Trump while he is overseeing a racist campaign to kidnap brown people, murdering American citizens for trying to protect their neighbors, and lying about all of it.

On top of all this, his justice department is currently laser focused on protecting powerful pedophiles, many of whom have ties to the Trump administration itself, including our commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who admitted yesterday that he visited Epstein Island in 2012 after lying about cutting ties with the dead rapist pedophile.

It would be very easy for the Dodgers to skip the White House trip as they just went last year, and Trump’s approval rating currently sits at a record low of 31%. He has never been as weak and unpopular, and it will only get worse from here.

Even if the Dodgers aren’t content to simply “do the right thing” to be on the correct side of history, there are business reasons for the team not to go as well!

At least half of their fanbase is Latino, many of whom are undocumented and at risk of being thrown into the back of unmarked vans by masked goons and shipped to measles-infested concentration camps in Texas. It is a slap in the face to all of them, and to the rest of us who stand in solidarity with our community during this horrific time in American history.

The Dodgers may pretend like what’s happening in the United States right now is normal, and that their multibillion dollar business can insulate them from any consequences if they just cover their eyes and ears and go along to get along.

The rest of us cannot do that.

The team of Jackie Robinson and Fernando Valenzuela and THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES simply cannot sanction Trump’s actions with their presence. The Dodgers cannot allow Shohei Ohtani, the greatest baseball player of all time, to be photographed with a psychopath in the middle of his white nationalist ethnic cleansing purge. Japan does not like Trump either, with 70% of the population saying US-Japan ties have gotten worse since he took office a year ago.

Manager Dave Roberts cited having “respect for the office,” as a reason for going which is crazy, because Trump himself does not respect the office. He is currently knocking down the east wing of the White House to build a bribe monument to himself without congressional approval. He has shattered every norm of decorum and decency, and refuses to follow the rule of law or the Constitution.

Trump also just announced he’s cutting $328 million in health care grants that congress already allocated to California, just because he hates our state.

The Dodgers will likely visit the White House when the team goes to DC to play the Nationals from April 3rd to the 5th. They still have a few months to change their minds and do the right thing here, and I hope they will.

If corporate cowardice wins the day and the Dodgers do show up and smile alongside the worst president this republic has ever known, they deserve all the criticism that’s coming their way.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into the live video!

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Hi friends-

As anyone who watched the World Series knows, the Dodgers best relief pitcher, Alex Vesia, missed the Fall Classic as he was away from the team while dealing with a family emergency.

Today he and his wife, Kayla, announced that their newborn daughter, Sterling Sol, died on Sunday October 26th…

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More World Series coverage from The Long Game this week: Dodgers vs. Blue Jays World Series preview, Dodger Bullpen Enters, Hilarity Ensues, Yoshinobu Yamamoto Strikes Back, A Hater’s Guide to the Games in LA, The Long Game, Can Youshinobu Yamamoto Save the Dodgers Season?, It’s Shohei Ohtani vs. Max Scherzer for Everything, and Some Things are More Important Than Baseball.

Hi friends-

I’ve now watched game 7 of the 2025 World Series back three times, and I’m even more at a loss on where to begin since Freddie Freeman squeezed the final out of an unforgettable season in his glove last night.

Let’s start here: the Dodgers have repeated as champions in a sport where that is damn-near impossible.

They did it against a younger, fresher team that was playing better in almost every facet.

And of course, they did it by winning two elimination games on the road in front of an electric Toronto crowd, including a game 7 that is being described by many as one of the best games—if not the best— they’ve ever seen.

I don’t think that’s hyperbole.

Baseball-Reference.com keeps track of the most pivotal plays in MLB history (basically, plays where one’s odds of either winning or losing a world championship are either dramatically upped or lowered based on the result). Here is a list of the 16 most pivotal plays in MLB history. THREE OF THE TOP TWELVE HAPPENED LAST NIGHT. They all went the Dodgers’ way:

A seven game World Series is already unhinged.

A seventh game that goes into extra innings? Diabolical.

A game 7 where the trailing team’s number nine hitter—who has not collected a hit in a month and almost never homers—whacks a game tying home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth to save his team’s season? Legendary

THE DODGERS GAME 6 STARTING PITCHER COMING IN ON ZERO DAYS REST TO GET THE FINAL EIGHT OUTS TO CLOSE IT OUT?

I’ll let you know the words for that when I come up with them.

This has been the most fun baseball season I can remember, and I know most of you agree with me.

Despite the largesse of some of the biggest market teams, no club won 100 games, as each had its own…. challenges that ranged from star player injuries, to bullpens being tire fires to All-Star closers getting swept up in gambling investigations.

The playoffs looked like they would be wide open, and they were.

The Blue Jays proved they were the best team in the American League by taking out an electric Mariners squad in seven games. That Seattle team had to beat a tough Detroit Tigers team in five games to even make the ALCS. The American League side of the bracket was a knockdown, drag out brawl all the way through, and it wasn’t hard to see why the world fell in love with a relentless Blue Jays team of guys who love each other and play with class. They are also anchored by Vladito, a man who is impossible to dislike.

On the National League side, the Dodgers flattened the Reds in the wild card round, then needed every ounce of luck to beat the Phillies in the NLDS. They then made the Brewers look like a little league team in an NLCS sweep, and met up with the toughest squad they faced in the postseason in Toronto in the Fall Classic.

It is pretty rare that the two best teams wind up playing for a World Series title. This year it was obvious that’s exactly what happened.

This is the fourth time the Dodgers have won a title in my lifetime, and the third in the last five years. This one is the sweetest one by far.

It did not feel like LA was going to repeat 48 hours ago.

After somehow outlasting the Jays in that 18 inning game 3 from hell at Dodger Stadium on Monday to take a 2-1 series lead, LA came back for games 4 and 5 smelling absolutely cooked. Their hitters looked like they were swinging pool noodles at individual lentils. The fielders were distracted by bumble bees and peanut vendors. Shohei Ohtani was not good on the mound, and did not take over the series with his bat like we thought he would.

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Hi friends-

Before we dive in, our good friend Craig Minami (who is also on the board with me at the Hollywood Food Coalition) generously donated two tickets to World Series game 4 on Tuesday in reserve section 10 (between home plate and first base) + parking to raffle off to raise money for the Coalition!

Each raffle ticket costs $25. One raffle ticket will feed seven Angelenos tonight. You can purchase your tickets here! The winner will also receive a personalized, signed copy of my book, which is almost as good as seeing Shohei Ohtani make his World Series debut on the mound lol.

The raffle closes for entries at 11:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, October 27, 2025 (tomorrow). The winner will be announced and contacted via email (or phone if provided) by 9:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, October 28, 2025.

Thank you for your support!

Alright. Wow.

I wrote yesterday how the Dodgers were not going to win the World Series without their starting pitchers basically going seven innings each game. With Alex Vesia out due to a personal family matter, I wrote that Yoshinobu Yamamoto would need to do everything he could with the Dodgers down one game to none to hang in the game long enough to turn the ball over to rookie closer Roki Sasaki.

Reader, he did better than that.

After surrendering one measly run in the third inning, Yamamoto conducted another complete game symphony, carving through an awesome Jays lineup with an unhittable curveball, a wipeout split, and a fastball he dotted on the corners of the zone like a master darts player.

In the seventh inning, he even got bored and threw his cutter fives times out of eight pitches for funsies to see if that would work. Three up, three down.

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Hi friends-

It’s gonna be a busy day in The Long Game HQ even though no baseball will be played.

I’m feeling separation anxiety being away from you guys in the chat (lol). Just had a lovely time with a few dozen of you on our weekly zoom at noon, hoping to chat with you all in the comments of this piece, and also when I post my free Friday newsletter (Sunday edition) on the riveting ALCS tomorrow morning

But first, Shohei..

You have to hand it to Ohtani. The M’s got their biggest hit in franchise history and moved closer to the World Series than ever before, and this unicorn freak stunt king immediately went out and stole their thunder by turning in what is being called the greatest single game performance in MLB history.

It’s just rude, man.

Anyway, it feels weird trying to come up with what to say about Ohtani’s game last night, as I crashed out after his second home run when he hit a ball over the roof of the right centerfield pavilion at Dodger Stadium.

Reader, I am a fifth generation Angeleno who was born into this mess. I then became a baseball writer when I grew up, and have witnessed literally thousands of players take ABs at Dodger Stadium in batting practice and during games. I have never seen this before, because it’s never happened before:

Miguel Rojas’ face sums up where I’m still at a day later. That ball entered a different realm and it scared me! You go your entire life thinking something is not possible. And then you see it happen and your worldview shatters because what if the optimists have been right all along and anything is possible!

What if some kid from Cameroon comes along in 20 years and hits a ball to the 110 freeway?

I imagine that watching that Ohtani homer gave people the same feeling as watching Roger Bannister break the 4 minute mile or Secretariat roaring down the final stretch at the Belmont Stakes to win the Triple Crown in 1973.

Watching that clip of Secretariat run the Belmont this morning and hearing the broadcaster scream “But Secretariat is all alone!” summed it up for me.

Shohei Ohtani is all alone. We’ve been comparing him to Babe Ruth, but I don’t think

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Hi friends-

We’ve had….quite a time so far in these playoffs, and our chats have been unhinged in the best way! The stress! The drama! The Sal Frelick scary face! The terror of seeing Blake Treinen warm up! Josh Naylor wreaking havoc the bases! All of it!

As a reminder, our chats are behind a paywall so I can afford health care and stuff. We don’t allow cursing (or else every word would be F—k), arguing, belittling other fanbases, or politics (this is not me trying to censor anyone, we all just desperately need a 3-6 hour daily break from talking/thinking about this stuff or we’re all going to go crackers).

I think this is why our chats have taken off the way they have. There is no other place to talk sports with strangers on the Internet that isn’t toxic, to my knowledge, because we have worked hard for years to build The Long Game into what it is now. And boy, is it surpassing my wildest expectations. Even Substack has asked me for pointers on how our chats are so successful, and what we’d like to see them improve (edit button, search, and the ability to post gifs are all feedback you’ve given me that I will be passing along.)

But how do I tell Substack it’s because of you all? Well let’s see… Every substack writer should seek to cultivate a following of kind-hearted baseball sickos who want to make friends with other kind-hearted baseball sickos who they can go to games with IRL, even if they root for other teams? That’s…. not really replicable lol. I can’t WAIT until we have our first Long Game wedding of people who met in the comment section. I will be the flower girl if you want. <3

Anyway, here’s a taste of what went down last night in the chat during the ninth inning of Game 1 of the NLCS when the Dodgers bullpen almost blew it.

I also want to make it clear that this is NOT a Dodger blog, even though I was born into that fandom. We have great fans from EVERY team in our chat. Long Game High Priestess Jane from Seattle (M’s fan) has been our Mariners correspondent for years. Princess (to us) Kate Hendry of Canada has been our Blue Jays analyst for years as well. She is why Ernie Clement’s excellence is no mystery to us!!!

I’m looking for some Brew Crew supporters to get loud and zany and everything else in the comments, and join our weekly zooms to give us all the regular updates on Frelick and Contreras and Turang and Yelich and Chourio and Fastball Freddy Peralta. We love you. We want your voices. It makes all this more fun.

We will be chatting every day until we have a World Series winner. The Friday chats remain free. Everything else is behind the wall. Even a monthly sub is only $6. Come join us! Tell your friends! The Internet doesn’t have to be terrible!

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Writing about Blake Snell’s playoff start right now is disorienting.

Because while fans of both teams were biting their nails and lighting candles for hours, Snell didn’t even appear to realize he was pitching in a postseason game.

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Hi friends-

We’ve already started a chat for today’s ALDS games for paid subscribers.

The paid list has been chatting like crazy in the Substack app during the playoffs and it’s been so silly and funny and absolutely bonkers.

I have to start new threads when we get to 1,000 comments because all you yappers crash the app, which has been happening every day!

To upgrade your subscription, get access to all my playoff analysis, join the chats, and become my new best friend, go here:

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I was preparing to write about both NLDS game 2’s today, but what is there to say about the Cubs/ Brewers series other than that the Brewers are really, really good, and the Cubs have not shown they have the pitching to stop them.

The Cubbies will need to out-slug the Crew at Wrigley tomorrow to keep from getting swept, and I hope they do, because sweeps are zzzzz— unless your team is the one holding the broom, of course.

The Dodgers also have a commanding 2-0 lead over the Phillies, but……. it’s been a bit….more competitive than the other NL series lol.

Yesterday, Blake Snell fired six shutout innings, allowing one hit, and striking out nine.

The Phillies’ Peruvian wonder Jesús Luzardo matched Snell frame for frame, tossing six shutout innings himself, before getting into trouble in the seventh when he allowed back-to-back hits to Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman start the frame. Luzardo took the loss as reliever Orion Kerkering allowed both runners to score. That L is especially brutal because he played better than any Philly on the field yesterday. He allowed just four (4!) baserunners to one of the best offenses in the game.

The Dodgers did the same thing they did to the Phillies in game 1: waited out a dominant starter until they could strike the soft underbelly of Philadelphia’s bullpen.

After knocking Luzardo out of the game, they plated four runs in the 7th off Kerkering and Matt Strahm, and took a 4-0 lead. Fans at Citizen’s Bank Park booed the Phils off the field, and some even left the stadium in disgust. Even a few sad Phillies fans in our chat switched over to Monday Night Football in heartbreak.

I tried to tell everyone a four-run lead was not NEARLY enough with this Dodger bullpen and Dave Roberts’ obsession with Blake Treinen, but the Negadelphians didn’t believe me.

I suppose I didn’t believe me either for a minute, when Roberts brought Emmet Sheehan into the bottom of the 7th and he pumped strike after strike for a clean inning. Then Sheehan came out for the 8th and surrendered a run on a misplay by Andy Pages in right, but still looked to be in complete control after striking out Kyle Schwarber and getting Bryce Harper on an easy fly out to end the inning.

Since Sheehan—who throws with his right hand—was left in the game to face the Phillies best two left handed hitters even though Alex Vesia—who throws with his left hand—was ready, it looked to me like Roberts was ready to let Sheehan pitch the rest of the game, or at least send him back out to begin in the ninth with three right-handed hitters due up.

Reader, he did not do that.

For reasons between Dave Roberts and God, he is still obsessed with Blake Treinen, even though Treinen has been a wreck this season (5.40 ERA), and especially awful in September (9.64 ERA). It’s as if Roberts and Treinen are trauma bonded through all

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Hi friends-

As the Dodgers clinched their 12th NL West title in 13 years, I thought back to the first one that kicked off this run of dominance back in 2013.

I was writing a book on that Dodger team, and I believe I attend…

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Hi friends-

Thank you for your patience as I dealt with a personal matter.

I hope you are ready to get sick of me, because we are entering the home stretch of the regular season and our chats will continue to happen 3-4 times a week, then every day in the season’s final ten days and throughout the playoffs.

Paid subscribers get access to all our chats, and by taking out a paid sub now you can feel good about helping an independent writer during this brutal time for journalists everywhere.

Plus, people all over the country are making friends in the chats and are then attending baseball games with those friends in real life. I know! People are GETTING OFF THEIR PHONES AND GETTING TO THE BALLPARK because of these chats. (They of course re-join the chats after they get home from said games, as required by law.) I hope you will join us!

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Let’s all just take a moment and bask in the fantastic photo Katleyn Mulcahy of Getty took of Mookie Betts last night that sits atop of this newsletter. Betts appears as thrilled as anyone would be to hit a grand slam at any level, of course, but there’s something more. As Betts leaps in the air, his home whites gleaming against the darkly lit and ecstactic fans in the bleachers in the background, it looks as if he is both fist-bumping and hugging himself at the same time. He is relieved. But more than that, he looks confident that, yes, this should be happening. He is Markus Lynn Betts. And Markus Lynn Betts pulls baseballs into the left field pavilion at Dodger Stadium with ease when the universe spins the correct way on its axis.

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but probably not. Because for this season’s first five months, Mookie Betts stunk. I’m not being mean, here. No one thought Mookie stunk worse than he did. No baseball player that I’ve ever been around— with the exception of his teammate Clayton Kershaw— is harder on himself. And because baseball is such a mindf—k, the worst part about Mookie’s slump is the only person who could pull Mookie out of Mookie’s slump was Mookie…..who was in a slump.

But he’s done it now, army crawling upward through quicksand to somehow save a lost season as an interminable summer gives way to September and October sprints.

On August 4th, Betts was hitting .231 with a .657 OPS and 11 homers through this first 103 games this year. In his 32 games since he’s batted .352 with a .987 OPS, 7 HR, and more walks (12) than strikeouts (8). How big must the baseball look to Mookie Betts in the batter’s box right now that he’s homered one fewer time than he’s struck out in the last month? Grapefruit size? Watermelon?

Betts caught a mystery virus in March and lost a ton of weight. As predicted, it took his body and his confidence an awfully long time to recover. But if he’s back back, he’s one of the 10 or so guys in the league who could carry a team to a title with the whip of his bat. And he looks back back. This is bad news for the rest of the league.

After a dreadful summer, the Dodgers are suddenly terrifying again.

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Hi friends-

After a week of rest and recovery from my appendix issue (not what you want!!!) we are back! Our Saturday zooms will resume tomorrow. Thank you for all your emails and texts. Luckily, the ole’ pendy didn’t explode like a SpaceX rocket, and I remain day-to-day (but aren’t we all?).

The Dodgers have someho…

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Hi friends-

Thank you for your patience as I deal with a personal matter. We will (hopefully) now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Before we get started, a reminder that we are having our Long Game meet-up at Fenway for Dodgers vs. Red Sox this Saturday, July 26th!

About 40 of us have tickets together in the grandstand, and we will be taking lots of pictures and posting in the chat. If you live in the area and want to come hang with us before the game, we will be gathering at the restaurant/bar Eastern Standard from about 3 pm until we head in. It would be lovely to meet as many Long Gamers as possible! Come through! <3

And for those of you not able to come, the game will be on Fox nationally at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT.

When Kirby Yates walked the bases loaded to begin the 8th inning today I just laughed. Here’s a dude who had faced 127 batters this season before today and had walked just nine of them. So of course it made sense he would walk the first three Twins to step in against him. Just as Will Klein and Ben Casparius each walked the bases loaded last night. I did the math, and the three of them walked 9 hitters, gave up 8 runs, and recorded exactly one out combined.

In the middle of all these three meltdowns, the second-most expensive reliever in Dodger history, Tanner Scott, felt his elbow explode and walked off the mound with the trainer last night.

“He is emotionally not well,” manager Dave Roberts said after the game. And I laughed again because Roberts may as well have been speaking for all Dodger fans.

Despite Yates’ best efforts to blow the game today and send the Dodgers to their fourth series loss this month, Esteury Ruiz drew a miracle walk in the bottom of the ninth, and Freddie Freeman hit the ball to Harrison Bader, who appears to play on skates in left. Runners circled the bases as Bader dove and missed, and the Dodgers beat the Twins 4-3.

And now the team is off to Boston and so am I. Only a true baseball sicko would beg off driving 6 miles to watch a flailing team on a Wednesday only to fly across the country for the same privilege two days later.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

I wrote in my season preview that I didn’t think the Dodgers would repeat this year, not because I’m a hater, but because the physical and emotional toll of winning a World Series means death the following year. Especially if you win one by the skin of Walker Buehler’s teeth because all of your relievers (and starting pitchers!) are dead.

Freddie Freeman sacrificed his right ankle to the baseball gods by playing on it through October, a Faustian bargain he would take a hundred times over. But as thrilling as his walk-off Game 1 World Series grand slam was in 2024, there have been games in 2025 where it looks like every step hurts him to take. The body, as they say, has kept the score.

I can say nothing about Dodger pitching that hasn’t already been said. The team sacrificed the arms of Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kyle Hurt, River Ryan and Gavin Stone to win a title last year. More fellows have gotten hurt this year. Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki both have bobblehead giveaways despite having pitched 40 innings combined. They will add more arms at the deadline because they have to. Maybe they could interest Cleveland in Dalton Rushing or Zhyir Hope in a package that includes Emmanuel Clase?

They’ll fix their pitching as best they can, and hopefully Snell, Graterol, and Treinen will all return and be great.

The larger concern IMO is Mookie Betts, who stupidly played through a virus that caused him to lose 20 pounds in March, and who is subsequently having his worst season as a big leaguer by far.

How bad has Mookie been?

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LOS ANGELES --

Hi friends,

Thank you to everyone who joined our emergency chat last night. We wound up with 437 comments— a record for a Monday! If you missed it, you can check it out here:

When I arrived at Dodger Stadium a little before 3 pm yesterday I had no idea what to expect. I parked in the top deck, took the stairs down to the reserve level, entered through the press gate, then took another long flight of stairs down to the club level where the press box sits. The club level is also where the luxury suites are.

Reader, I’m telling you this because when I exited the stairs on the club level, and turned right for the press box, someone very special was exiting the elevator across from the press box and heading straight toward me. Yep, you guessed it:

DECOY OHTANI.

With his mother, Mamiko, and her friend.

My brain registered DOG! the same way it does when I see a COW! while driving through farmland in central California. I shrieked something like “oh my goodness look at you!” and Decoy wiggled straight to me.

Friends, every dog is good. This dog? Oh he’s extra good. Soft, friendly, happy.

I scratched his head and he immediately sniffed the Canelo on me and went to work licking my hand, then sniffing and licking my leg under my long sundress. Mamiko was embarrassed and said “oh, sorry!” I turned to her and said “No! I love dogs!! He’s just smelling my dog. It’s fine! This has made my day!” And Mamiko smiled and laughed, showing the same kind of manners her husband Shohei does when he hits a foul ball toward the visiting dugout and screams for his opponent to lookout!

It was a 45 second encounter. And no, I don’t have pics because pulling my camera out would have been super weird. You are just going to have to take my word for it that on this blessed day I got to pet the only dog in the stadium, who happened to belong to the man 53,207 fans were coming to see take the mound for the Dodgers for the first time in a little over four hours.

After putting my stuff down in the press box, I took the stairs down to the Dodgers clubhouse. Shohei walked in a few minutes later. I thought about walking over to him and saying “I just met your dog!” but then I remembered that 1) you are not supposed to talk to starting pitchers the day they take the ball and 2) You are not supposed to talk to Shohei solo unless his agent issues you some kind of security clearance and a gold star. (By the way, Shohei’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara began serving his 57-month federal sentence for stealing millions from Ohtani yesterday, if you can believe it. What are the odds of this happening the same day of Ohtani’s mound return? Everything about This Man is nuts!)

Anyway, I found myself wondering if Shohei had arrived with Decoy, and that’s why I ran into them both. Then I realized Shohei had probably already been at the stadium for hours, prepping to both pitch and hit. I am relieved that Mamiko has Decoy to hang out with while her husband is extremely busy doing baseball things.

We were told Shohei would only pitch one inning, and act as an “opener.” This is because the Dodgers cannot send him to their Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City to do rehab starts like they do with their other pitchers returning from injury, because Shohei is their designated hitter, and that’s inconvenient.

The thinking was that Ben Casparius would be the “bulk guy” to come in behind Ohtani as the “real” starting pitcher. I like Ben, and wanted to talk to him before the game because some fans had been telling me “This is the Dawning of the Age of Casparius” and I had just spoken to Dodger organist Dieter Ruhle about playing “The Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In” by the Fifth Dimension whenever Casparius was on the mound. Dieter liked the idea and said he’d do it, which he did. I wanted to ask Ben if he’d ever heard of the 56-year-old song, but realized it was inappropriate to talk to him, too, as he was *also* the day’s starting pitcher.

These are the hidden rakes we must avoid stepping on in the modern game.

Ohtani was in the clubhouse for a minute or so, joking with countryman and rotation mate(???) Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Then he grabbed a bat and left. I noted I had never seen a starting pitcher do that before, and was chastised by a Giants fan for Madison Bumgarner erasure.

I then walked into the interview room, where Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes was to hold a press conference discussing Ohtani’s return. This is when things got weird.

After about ten people shouted questions, I got mine in.

“How concerned are you that if Ohtani hurts himself pitching you will lose your best hitter?” I asked from the second row.

What he said made my jaw drop.

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TOKYO —

Hi friends,

I went back to the Big Egg last night for Roki Sasaki’s major league debut. I posted in the chat that he was all over the place during warm-ups (bouncing balls in the dirt and pushing his fastball arm-side), and that I was worried he’d be wild.

Well.

His stuff was unhittable…when it was anywhere near the plate.

Sasaki started strong, pumping three straight fastballs at 100 miles per hour to Ian Happ, and touching 101 on a first pitch heater to Seiya Suzuki (who became the first strikeout victim of his career). It appeared that the answer to the “How do I fix my fastball velocity?” homework assignment he gave all the teams who wanted to sign him was simply “join an American team and then return to Japan.”

These Japanese crowds were so quiet when pitches were being thrown that you could hear the “pop! pop! pop!” of the catcher’s glove. You could also hear Sasaki’s grunts and screams as he let go of the ball, like he was Serena Williams whacking a serve. At one point I closed my eyes to listen to the game, and got chills.

Whatever extra adrenaline was powering his fastball in the first inning had run its course by the second, and his four-seamer settled back down to a mere 97-98. He walked two batters, but escaped any damage by getting Cubs’ top prospect Matt Shaw to pop out, and inducing a hard-luck, hard hit double play ball from Pete Crow-Armstrong.

It unraveled a bit for Sasaki in the 3rd when he couldn’t find the plate at all. His famed splitter looked like a ball out his hand all night, just like in warm-ups. It was easy for hitters to spit on.

After getting Carson Kelly to pop out, he gave up the first major league hit of his career: a squibber up the third base line to Jon Berti, of all people. (If Sasaki becomes a Hall of Famer I hope I remember this bit of trivia, like how Skip Schumaker was the first to collect a knock against Clayton Kershaw, a fact that Skip always reminds the big lefty).

Sasaki then walked Happ, Suzuki, and Kyle Tucker—yes he's a Cub now!— in order, forcing in the first run of his career.

Former Dodger Michael Busch had a chance to exact revenge on his old team with the bases loaded, but was frozen by a perfectly dotted fastball on the outside corner and struck out looking. Then Shaw got his shot with the bags full, but was overwhelmed by the fastball, then annihilated by the two best sliders Sasaki threw all night. Poor Matt Shaw drew Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to begin his MLB career, and at that moment had gone 0-for-6 with three strikeouts, two infield pop outs, and a harmless groundout to second. Woof.

The Dodgers held a 3-1 lead after three innings, and Sasaki showed flashes of brilliance, rising to the moment to get himself out of his own self-inflicted trouble with his ability to strike anyone out at any time. But he had thrown more balls (31), than strikes (25), and manager Dave Roberts had seen enough. “He wanted to stay in the game,” the Dodgers skipper said afterward. “It was a decision I made [to pull him].”

One of the more frustrating aspects about an otherwise spectacular series in Japan was that all four starting pitchers were on a tight pitch count due to it still being mid-March and, well, every manager being frankly terrified of arm injuries. Shōta Imanaga went just four innings on Tuesday night; Sasaki went three, and Justin Steele went four (though, to be fair, he was awful against a Dodger lineup that didn’t even include Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman, and gave up five earned runs).

Yoshinobu Yamamoto should probably be awarded the medal of freedom for pitching five strong innings.

I’m not ready to say that baseball stinks now because starting pitchers are no longer main characters. After all, this is still spring and guys are building up and also jet lag does awful things to a body. But I still don’t love the way all of this is trending.

After the game, Sasaki denied that the anxiety of making his MLB debut in his home country overwhelmed him, and said that he was merely experiencing “a good nervousness.” (And I think I got some free therapy from this young pup with that term???)

He said his “command went awry” due to mechanical problems he will adjust, and called it a good learning experience. He also said he has no idea how different playing in MLB is from playing in Japan because….this MLB game was in Japan. I laughed.

Roberts complimented the kid. “At the end of the day, his talent and compete showed through,” he said, while noting that Sasaki is in a similar spot mentally that Yamamoto was in when he made his stateside debut last year, and that he will have to learn to trust his fastball and command it, because major league hitters are too good to not be attacked with the heater. It seemed as though Sasaki may have tried to be too fine with his pitches instead of just using brute force. But again, it was only his first MLB start. He gave up just one hit and one run over three innings, but walked five.

I had a Larry David-accidentally-tripping-and-injuring-Shaquille O’Neal moment with Shohei Ohtani before the game. I was wandering around lost under the stadium during Dodgers batting practice in an empty hallway (in an area I was allowed to be), when a staffer turned the corner and I almost collided with a large man. It was Shohei.

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TOKYO —

Last night, Shohei Ohtani returned to his native Japan to play in the first MLB game of his career here.

Yes, he took the field twice over the weekend at the Tokyo Dome in exhibition games against the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuiri Giants. But for all the emotion and intensity leading into this historic trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, I feel pretty certain he was able to calm himself by saying that even though those crowds were sold out and packed to the rafters with men, women, and children mostly wearing jerseys bearing his name, that he didn’t need to be nervous because they were merely spring training tune-ups.

Last night was different.

Ohtani has been here for six days, and the fervor surrounding him has been, in a word, overwhelming. It’s not possible to walk two blocks in Tokyo without seeing his face on the front of a convenience store or a billboard. I’m actually not sure how he has time to do all these advertisements in addition to playing baseball. He was already remarkable for having two full-time jobs as both a hitter and a pitcher, but it wasn’t until I landed at Haneda airport and was greeted by several Ohtani ads that I realized he has three full-time jobs: hitter, pitcher, and pitch-man.

Even Shibuya Crossing—the largest crosswalk in the world—is dominated by his face.

I would not be able to handle this. You would not be able to handle this. But somehow, the best baseball player who may have ever lived was also blessed with a nervous system of steel. Or so it seemed to me until last night, when I almost saw him break.

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Hi friends-

While it’s become chic for fans across baseball to bemoan how unfair it is that the Dodgers are able to sign every marquee free agent, it’s easy to forget that six years ago the club was having a hell of a time convincing A-list players to take their money.

For years, I’ve thought that the winter of 2019 was the nadir of the Dodgers' current decade run of dominance. But as time marches on, I’m realizing that one crushing decision from a free agent who spurned them that off-season may have been the catalyst that sent them on the rocket ship to the top of the sport, as they come off their second World Series title in five years, and have built a roster that some speculate could be one of the most talented in MLB history.

Let’s stroll down memory lane for a second to set this scene… The Dodgers had won NL West titles in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019—with no World Series rings to show for it. They had made the World Series in 2017 for the first time in 29 years, only to be cheated out of winning it all by an Astros team later disgraced by a sign stealing scandal.

They returned to the Fall Classic again in 2018 only to get drubbed by a far superior Mookie Betts-led Red Sox team.

Despite these back-to-back devastating World Series losses, they kept their chins up and won a then franchise-record 106 games in 2019. Then they got bounced by the Washington Nationals in the division series.

The Nats would go on to win their franchise’s first World Series title a few weeks later, and their scorching hot third baseman Anthony Rendon hit the free agent market as the second-best player available, after starting pitcher Gerrit Cole. The Dodgers went hard after both players, and lost both on the same day. First, Cole agreed to a nine-year deal worth $324 million with the Yankees that was reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan at 12 AM Eastern on December 11, 2019. Ten hours later, Passan reported that Rendon was signing a seven-year, $245 million contract with the Angels.

Cole has been worth every penny, winning the AL Cy Young award in 2023 and finishing in the top four of voting in three of his first five seasons with the team. The Bombers also made the playoffs in four of those seasons, and Cole anchored a Yankee pitching staff that won the American League pennant and advanced to its first World Series in 15 years this past October. I don’t think you can find a Yankee fan anywhere who would characterize Cole’s signing as a bust, and the Dodgers would have been lucky to sign him.

Rendon’s tenure on the Angels, on the other hand, has been an unqualified disaster. After signing that mammoth deal, his body began to disintegrate into discarded peanut shells at age 31. Injuries have limited Rendon to an average of 51 games over his first five seasons with the Angels. Even worse, he’s never played more than 57 games in any of those seasons. And when he has been able to play, he’s produced an OPS+ of 100—exactly league average. So it’s not like he’s missed a ton of time due to ligament tears and bumps and bruises but has produced at the level you’d expect from a guy being paid $38 million per annum when healthy. He’s just stunk. His tenure in Anaheim has been such a disaster that the biggest highlight of his Angel career so far was when he publicly challenged an A’s fan to a fight.

Look, injuries happen. I’m not here to judge anyone for getting hurt. Human bodies break down. Rendon was underpaid for the first half of his career when he put up MVP type numbers, and I didn’t see Nationals ownership complaining about it. Getting paid for past performance is just the way the messed up system works.

But what stood out to me about Rendon was when in his introductory press conference with the Angels, he could barely hide his disdain for the city of Los Angeles: saying the “Hollywood lifestyle” was not a fit for him and his family. I heard theories from various people in the Dodgers organization about what “Hollywood lifestyle” was a dog whistle for, but I’m not going to print those rumors here.

Anyway, when Rendon refused to take their money, the Dodgers suddenly found themselves with a few hundred extra million dollars kicking around that Andrew Friedman had theoretically been given the heads-up by ownership to spend.

And who did they give that money to?

That’s right. Mookie Betts.

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Hi friends-

I sat down for lunch today and checked MLBTradeRumors.com, my favorite website on the Internet, when I noticed something that shook me a bit.

MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported that free agent outfielder Teoscar Hernández is seeking a three-year deal for $22-$24 million a year. I had thought that after the tremendous year Hernández had, the way…

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Hi friends-

Well, wow.

It’s been 12 hours but the shock of what happened last night will endure for the next several months. Or maybe several lifetimes.

The Yankees had all the momentum in this World Series after they shellacked LA in Game 4. And even though New York once trailed in this series three games to none—a deficit no team has ever erased in the World Series— when Jack Flaherty came out to start Game 5 with nothing but a water gun and a prayer, all I could see were montages of the Dodgers making history as the biggest playoff chokers of all-time.

We all knew this series would turn on a dime the second Aaron Judge showed up. And when he homered on the first pitch Flaherty threw him in the first, I was thinking about the black car that must have been idling in the Bronx waiting to whisk the Dodgers Game 6 starter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to JFK to catch an early flight back to LA.

But then Dave Roberts did what I knew he would, and brought in his very best relievers in the second and third to fight with everything the Dodgers had to win this game and end the series. He must have felt the same sickening bowling ball in his stomach that every Dodger fan did. Had the Yankees crushed the Dodgers last night to cut the series deficit to three games to two, with Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, and Judge all on heaters—boy, that’s a terrifying position to be in going home, even if you have two games to win one.

Gerrit Cole absolutely cruised through the first four innings without allowing a hit. And hey, had Cole no-hit the Dodgers, it wasn’t gonna matter that Flaherty sucked and gave up four runs while only recording four outs.

But then Dodger October legend Enríque Hernández led off the fifth by ambushing a Cole fastball for a single. At this point the Dodgers must have been thinking, “OK. Keep battling. Just get a little closer and make them so nervous that they use all their best relievers again for the 80th time this series and that’s still a W even if we lose.”

And then:

Tommy Edman hit a shallow fly ball to Judge that was so easy to catch that Judge actually took his eye off the ball and looked at Hernández to see if he might double him off first because he had strayed a little too far away from the base.

Clank.

Bang.

Disaster.

Every baseball sicko out there saw that play and thought the same thing. The Yankees had a five-run lead.

And yet.

Judge flubbing the ball in such a catastrophic way was like Bill Buckner watching one roll through his legs, like Steve Bartman catching one that might have landed in Moises Alou’s glove. It was the kind of catastrophe so specific and so painful to playoff baseball that I’m gonna have PTSD from it for the rest of my life and I wasn’t even rooting for the Yankees.

Plays like that let the Bad Thoughts In. The faces of Yankee players tightened. The home crowd clenched and cursed and held its breath.

Then Will Smith hit a ground ball to Anthony Volpe’s right, and rather than take the sure out at first with a five-run lead, Vople played hero ball and tried to make a difficult play getting the lead runner at third. He spiked the ball in the dirt.

Cole, who had pitched an absolute dandy, was now staring down a bases loaded, no out situation. The good news was that he got to face Gavin Lux, and a badly injured Shohei Ohtani. He struck them both out.

The bad news was that Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Teoscar Hernández all lurked.

I texted a friend that if Betts got on, that Freddie Freeman would tie the game.

I was close.

Betts grounded a ball weakly to first that should have ended the inning.

And then:

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Hi friends-

Before we get started, I just wanted to remind our newcomers that the best part of this newsletter is our chats! We chat during every postseason game, and we don’t allow cursing, politics, bullying other fanbases, etc. It’s a lovely experience!

The chats are open to all paid subscribers. I hope you’ll join us tonight! <3

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I make a lot of baseball predictions, which means I am wrong way more often than I am right. For instance, before the season began I predicted the Rangers would repeat as World Series champions and that Spencer Strider would capture the NL Cy Young award. Uh. LOL. Strider was hurt all year and the Rangers were terrible.

But yesterday I got it right.

If you read my Game 4 preview before the game then you already knew what would happen and didn’t even need to watch. Even my mom was gagged when I told her I would watch Game 4 at home alone from my couch because I am fried and the Dodgers weren’t going to win a world championship yesterday.

Here’s what I wrote:

The Dodgers bullpen may be magnificent, but Treinen looks exhausted, and Vesia, Banda, and Kopech can’t go four times in five days. LA is going to punt this game like they chucked Games 2 and 5 of the NLCS by using rookie Ben Casparius as the opener, and rookie Landon Knack and journeyman Brent Honeywell as the bulk relievers. These three men would be in the minor leagues if the team didn’t have TEN pitchers who were better on the injured list right now. They even cut Honeywell in August and were able to send him in the minors when no other team claimed him.

If you had told me that the Dodgers were going to try to clinch the World Series in the Bronx with those three on the mound even a month ago I would have called you insane. And yet here we are. Staring down a World Series punt while understanding that losing this game in order to win the war is the correct thing for the Dodgers to try to do.

LA has four chances to win one game. Resting the A-list arms and hoping the offense steals this game and ends this series tonight is absolutely the right call.

I just do not think the MLB season will end tonight.

I understand that many Dodger fans are incensed, and that supporters of other fanbases are confused: why on Earth would the Dodgers not go for the kill when only trailing by a run in the fifth inning?

Well, it’s pretty simple:

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Hi friends-

Before we dive in, I just want to encourage those of you who haven’t already to join us in the chat tonight during Game 4! Chats are open to all paid subscribers, and they’re super fun. Come hang with us!

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I have a million thoughts (and two million feelings!) about last night’s game and where this series stands but let’s cut straight to the point: the Dodgers have somehow taken a commanding 3-0 lead in a World Series we all thought would go six or seven, and now have a chance to sweep the New York Yankees and win the championship tonight.

The prevailing line of thinking among the biggest baseball brains right now is that this was supposed to be a World Series for the ages except the Yankees failed to show up.

I disagree.

The Yankees were one horrific Nestor Cortes meatball away from winning Game 1, and had the winning runs on base in the ninth inning of Game 2 with less than two outs and failed to cash in.

Both of those games came down to the last at-bat despite the fact that Aaron Judge has been horrible.

Then last night, Big Walker Game Buehler took the ball in the Bronx and shoved it down their throats. But it’s not like this is the first time Buehler has been spectacular in the Fall Classic. In three World Series starts, Buehler has now thrown 18 innings and given up just one run (0.50 ERA). He has struck out 22 and walked just three. We are dealing with a very small sample size, of course, except that we can now say for certain that Buehler is a red light performer: the more cameras that are fixed on his every pitch, the better he throws the ball.

Last night, Buehler joined Madison Bumgarner, Jon Lester, and Andy Pettitte as the only pitchers in the wild card era to toss multiple scoreless starts of 5+ innings in the World Series (and the only righty!). So, it’s not like the Yankees got shut down in Game 3 by Landon Knack.

*A note here about Clayton Kershaw. While it’s cool to watch Buehler succeed, it’s frustrating thinking about how different Kershaw’s playoff legacy would look if the Dodgers hadn’t demanded he go 7+ innings every time he took the ball in October, which is just a crazy ask. It was pretty clear that even though Buehler was rolling last night that he was never going to be allowed to face the Yankees lineup a third time through, and that’s almost always when Kershaw ran into playoff disaster. The Dodgers put Buehler in a position to succeed in ways they never did for Kershaw, who they also had throw on short rest every NLDS or NLCS. But, whatever! I’m not mad. Do not write in the newspaper that I got mad!

Maybe the baseball gods will sort all this out and Kershaw’s teammates will carry him to the second ring he was cheated out of in 2017 and his October legacy will seem more fair.*

Anyway, the other reason why I’m not totally buying the Yankee choke narrative is that the Dodgers pitching staff did this same thing to the Padres and Mets as well, and those hitters were good! Remember when Dodger pitchers combined to throw 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the NLDS and NLCS? That was two weeks ago.

So, yeah. You could say the Yankees stink because they’ve only scored 7 runs through three games, which is the same number of RBI Freddie Freeman has in this series. But that would mean that the Padres and Mets offenses also stunk. The common denominator here is the Dodgers’ arms, which are dominating against all odds. This is a team that is trying to win two seven-game series back-to-back with only three healthy starting pitchers. That kind of strategy places an unbelievable burden on a team’s bullpen, and those guys have been absolute dawgs. The Dodgers have turned to relievers 15 times so far during the first three games of this series, and none of them imploded (though Blake Treinen tried, twice). That’s pretty good.

But boy, I’ll tell you what: if the Yankees lose tonight, they should probably fire everyone from the GM down to the hotdog vendors.

Here’s why:

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Hi friends-

I have four thousand things to say about last night’s game but almost no words to figure out how to say those things.

Last night felt like a dream. It felt like an exorcism. It felt so close to the Kirk Gibson game from 36 years ago that the script writers might have circled a little too close to the nose.

There have only been two World Series walk-off home runs in MLB history when a team was down to its final out. Gibson in Game 1 of 1988. Freddie Freeman in Game 1 last night. Both homers landed in the right field pavilion at Dodger Stadium. Both were hit by men on one leg.

I was six years old during the 1988 season, and had not yet been to a Dodger game. As I have shared with you guys, I took my six-year-old niece, Emmie, to the game last night. I talk to Emmie every day and would take her to anything. This was different. I took her last night because she started playing t-ball in the spring and loved it so much she asked to play t-ball again in the fall.

But there’s a bigger reason I was so desperate for her to go: I missed the Gibson homer in person and I didn’t want that for her. Of course, what I mean to say is that I missed seeing the Dodgers win the World Series in person, and they wouldn’t return to the Fall Classic for another 29 years. And the way the Dodgers have been crashing out of the playoffs lately, there was (and still is!) absolutely a scenario where they don’t win another championship for 29 more years (just ask Cubs or Red Sox or Guardians fans how that goes).

I didn’t want that for Emmie. So in some ways yesterday felt like I got to rub a lamp and a genie popped out and gave me a do-over to take a six-year-old me to see the Dodgers in the World Series.

I didn’t actually think that a Dodger would go full Gibson and hit a last ditch walk-off homer to win the game. I was just hoping Emmie would have fun and could tell her future niece that her auntie had taken her to the World Series.

Even before Freeman’s 10th inning heroics, the game was so more exciting than the NLCS. It felt like the two best teams were battling their two biggest dogs on the mound. We were expecting a slugfest but got a pitcher’s duel. It felt good and it felt right.

Gerrit Cole’s fastball didn’t have as much life as usual, but he still flummoxed the Dodgers and held them to one run through six innings. Jack Flaherty rebounded from a rough start in Game 5 of the NLCS to match Cole out for out. We were sitting as far as one could get from home plate in Dodger stadium, but it looked to me like Flaherty had the best curveball he’d had all season. My assessment was an understatement. He threw that knuckle curve 17 times and got 12 swings and misses on it. That’s a 70.6% (!!!) whiff rate, and the most whiffs he’s gotten on that pitch in a game in his whole career.

Of course, one of those curves that was not missed was the pitch Giancarlo Stanton hit to Mars to give the Yanks a 2-1 lead in the sixth. But let’s be clear here: Flaherty didn’t hang it. That pitch wasn’t a mistake at all. Stanton is one of the best home run hitters who ever lived and he’s on an absolute heater right now and there’s nothing to do in a situation where a guy hits a low curveball harder than any ball that’s ever been tracked in the World Series in the Statcast era (from 2015-to the present), except curse and tip your cap.

This is why we watch baseball. This is what an epic at-bat in an epic World Series game between two storied franchises should look like.

The whole game was laced with the underlying tension of uh, there are six future Hall of Famers taking swings, and yet each team is having to scratch out one run at a time with their fingernails. At any moment, through all ten innings, any player on either team could take one swing and give their team the lead.

It was awful.

It was glorious.

The Dodgers tied it up in the bottom of the 8th on an unearned run when Juan Soto misplayed a Shohei Ohtani double into a triple and Mookie Betts hit a sac fly to drive him in, but the problems for the Yankees began in the 7th.

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