There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Ohtani hit his hardest-hit homer ever
Shohei Ohtani hit the 100th homer of his Dodgers’ career on Tuesday — which is wild when you remember he hasn’t finished his second season with the team yet — and he made it a special one. To mark the occasion, Ohtani hit the hardest home run he’s ever hit, as measured by exit velocity. Since this is Ohtani we’re talking about in the first place, that means this thing was smoked.
Welcome to the big leagues, Bubba Chandler. Make sure you watch that clip long enough to see the face he makes when he turns back to the camera — Chandler stared at that homer for about as long as Ohtani did, and then put on a face that said, pretty loudly, “well they don’t have guys like that in the minors.” Don’t worry, there aren’t guys like that in the majors, either. Just the one.
The dinger — which had an exit velocity of 120 mph and certainly sounded like it — was also Ohtani’s 46th of the season, putting him second in the National League behind Kyle Schwarber, and third in the majors overall. He has just the 17 steals this year, so we’re not about to see another 50/50 campaign out of him, but don’t fret: Ohtani didn’t forget how to swipe a base, he’s just pitching again. He’s struck out 44 batters in 32.1 innings so far instead, which seems like an acceptable trade off as far as being in awe of his performance goes.
Despite Ohtani’s blast, the Pirates ended up winning 9-7 in the end, but the Dodgers got a bit of a reprieve there, as the Padres also took an L on Tuesday. Los Angeles remains 2.5 up in the NL West over San Diego, with 24 games left on the schedule.
Benches clear in Colorado as Rockies lose No. 100
The Rockies have lost 100 games, and are the first team in MLB to reach that mark in 2025. They are, of course, trying to avoid becoming one of the five- or 10-worst teams in modern MLB history — meaning, dating back to 1901 — by losses, winning percentage and run differential, so it’s understandable that they might be a little frustrated when things don’t go their way. As happened to starting pitcher Kyle Freeland here, when Rafael Devers admired a home run for just a little too long to the lefty’s liking.
As you can see in this alternate angle, Freeland kept drifting toward first base and jawing at Devers — the initial clip makes it seem as if the Giants’ slugger had been talking trash the whole time, but he was responding.
Freeland started yelling at Devers, who did not appreciate being yelled at, and the benches cleared. Luckily, no one started throwing hands, with teammates mostly getting involved to make sure that no one started a fight with more than words, but again, it shouldn’t be surprising that tension would eventually boil over for Colorado. They played their 139th game of the season on Tuesday night, and they have lost 100 of those. It’s been a real long summer for the Rockies.
San Francisco, meanwhile, has won three in a row and are 9-1 in their last 10, putting them back over .500 and five games back of a wild card spot.
Grisham’s grand slam(s)
Before Tuesday, Trent Grisham had last hit a home run on Aug. 29, and it was a grand slam. The next long ball for the Yankees’ outfielder? Also a grand slam:
That was Grisham’s third grand slam of the season, too, tying him with Eugenio Suarez, Brandon Nimmo and Cal Raleigh for the most in MLB this year. He’s now also tied for the fourth-most grand slams in a season in Yankees’ history, per YES, behind Don Mattingly (6 in 1987) and the pair of Lou Gehrig and Tommy Henrich, who both had 4: Gehrig in 1934, Henrich in 1948. Grisham is in an 11-way tie for fourth place, so if he gets one more, that’ll clog up second place a bit more, but put him in far more elite company than the already rare grouping he’s in now.
Grisham has had quite the season. Over a full year, he’s never been as productive as in his 2025 — he actually came into the year on a run of three consecutive below-average offensive seasons. Grisham has hit .248/.356/.483 with 29 homers in 2025 however, blowing away his previous career-high of 17 bombs.
But wait, there’s more
The Grisham Grand Slam story doesn’t end there. You might have noticed in that clip that Astros’ catcher César Salazar motioned for Framber Valdez to step off of the mound before the pitch, which Valdez did not do: he instead began his motion, threw a 96-mph meatball down the middle of the plate, and Grisham plated four runs to give the Yankees a 6-0 lead that would power their 7-1 victory.
It gets a little weirder, too: two pitches later, Salazar called for a pitch below the strike zone, as evidenced by his glove’s placement, but Valdez instead fired a 93-mph fastball right at Salazar’s chest, well above his glove.
Valdez said post-game that this wasn’t intentional, as he just failed to locate the pitch he wanted to throw that Salazar knew was coming and already apologized to his catcher about it. Which is entirely plausible! Pitchers and catchers can get crossed up, and pitchers can certainly miss their spots — especially if they are currently, visibly frustrated about giving up a grand slam on a pitch they didn’t even have to make. Just maybe cut it out with the death stare after the pitch next time, perhaps show a little more whoopsie about it so no one is wondering if you meant to peg your catcher in the chest with a fastball is all.
Raleigh goes yard again
Cal Raleigh had not hit a homer since Aug. 25, so you knew he was due. MLB’s home run leader was the first to 50, and now he’s at 51 before anyone else reached him at the previous threshold.
Big Dumper tends to hit homers in little clusters, which always matters, but especially here since we have just a few weeks of season left. Raleigh’s next home run will tie him for the second-most by a switch-hitter in MLB history, with Mickey Mantle’s 1956, and put him just two behind tying Mantle for the all-time lead of 54, set in 1961.
Instincts!
Think fast, Clayton Kershaw.
Hey, he did.
Caminero made homer history
Junior Caminero hit his 40th home run of the season on Tuesday, and it was a notable one. At 22 years and 60 days, he’s the fourth-youngest player to reach the 40-homer mark in MLB history.
Per Sarah Langs, only Mel Ott in 1929 (20 years, 218 days), Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2019 (21, 285) and Eddie Matthews in 1953 (21, 349) were younger when they hit their 40th. Of note is that Caminero’s hot pace in the second half of the season has his potential season-end homer total rising and rising: he began August with a 41-homer pace, and is now up to 47. If — and this is a significant if — Caminero somehow hits 50 by continuing his torrid pace, he’ll be the youngest-ever to 50 dingers in a season: Prince Fielder was 23 when he achieved the feat in 2007. If he can’t manage that, well, he can always shoot for second-youngest later on: Pete Alonso, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ralph Kiner and Jimmie Foxx were all 24 when they pulled it off.
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