CHICAGO — Two weeks ago, Dave Roberts was declarative.
Shohei Ohtani, he said then, “is going to be the MVP of the National League.”
By Wednesday morning, however, the Dodgers manager sounded less sure.
While Ohtani remains one of the best hitters in baseball, his inability to pitch lately has opened the door to a potentially competitive MVP race.
And the player who has stepped right through it: Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, who staged an epic duel with Ohtani in the Cubs’ 7-6 win over the Dodgers on Wednesday at Wrigley Field.
“He’s having a heck of a year,” Roberts said of Crow-Armstrong pregame. “He has rightfully made it a lot closer than most people expected.”
Indeed, as the Cubs completed a series sweep that sent the Dodgers to a season-worst sixth straight defeat, the two superstar sluggers went back-and-forth with heavyweight blows.
Ohtani led off the top of the first with his 25th home run of the season. Crow-Armstrong then did the same in the bottom half of the frame to match that total.
Crow-Armstrong then followed with an RBI double in the second, punctuating a two-run rally, and another two-run home run in the fourth, helping push the Cubs to what became a 7-1 lead.
Ohtani, however, wasn’t done, either, recording his own multi-homer game with an opposite-field two-run blast in the eighth that — after Max Muncy had hit a three-run bomb earlier in the inning — brought the Dodgers back within a run before their wild comeback bid fell narrowly short.
“I guess today for me, what was cool was just getting to watch him from a different angle,” said Crow-Armstrong, who got a rare start as designated hitter that allowed him to study Ohtani’s swing from up close.
“I do think they were going toe to toe,” Roberts added. “Obviously, there’s a lot of talk about those two guys being the front-runners for the MVP. And they both showed up. You can see that they hear what’s being said about them. And that was fun for the fans.”
For the Dodgers, the loss undoubtedly still stung.
They extended their season-long losing streak, suffering consecutive sweeps to the Cubs and Red Sox after having previously gone winless in just one series all year.
They have also started to slip in the standings, now tied with the Braves for the No. 2 seed in the National League playoff picture (and the an all-important first-round bye that comes with) after owning the best record in baseball just a few days ago.
“You just got to kind of put your head down,” Roberts said.
“Right now, the priority is to win one game and stop the negative flow,” Ohtani added in Japanese.
As far as the MVP race is concerned, however, Wednesday was a thrilling exhibition; offering an exhilarating reminder of why Crow-Armstrong and Ohtani are now seen as MVP co-favorites.
“I haven’t followed the race, [but] I have followed what Pete’s doing,” Roberts said pregame. “He’s figured some things out with the bat … which has made him more of a complete player. So, yeah, he’s having an MVP-type season.”
At this point, even public betting odds are largely split between the two players.
“Simply put, just having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as he feels, it’s awesome and it’s a nice nod,” the 24-year-old Crow-Armstrong said, amid a career-best campaign in his fourth MLB season.
“There’s really no point in worrying about it at this stage,” Ohtani, whose four career MVP awards trail only Barry Bonds for most all time, countered when asked of the race postgame. “Numbers go up and down, so depending on the time, it changes whether you’re in a favorable position. Right now, the priority is to win one game and stop the negative flow.”
Offensively, Ohtani’s numbers are still a shade better than Crow-Armstrong’s: Ohtani was hitting .297 with 26 homers, 70 RBIs and an NL-best .953 OPS at the end of play Wednesday. Crow-Armstrong was at .288 with 26 homers, 69 RBIs and a .938 OPS that ranked third in the league.
But, for as good as Ohtani was on the mound earlier this year (8-2 record, 1.79 ERA in 14 starts), the fact his ongoing knee injury has kept him from pitching in more than a month has negated his typical two-way advantage.
“It’s getting better little by little,” Ohtani said of his knee Wednesday, but without being able to offer a specific timeline to begin ramping up on the mound again.
If anything, Crow-Armstrong’s daily defensive contributions (he leads all MLB players in outs-above-average and ranks top 10 in defensive runs saved) and base-running prowess (his 28 steals are fifth most in the majors) have given him more surplus value beyond his performance at the plate.
According to FanGraphs’ combined wins-above-replacement metric — which accounts for hitting and pitching production, and is often a bellwether for MVP voting — Crow-Armstrong has been worth a full WAR more than Ohtani, outpacing him before Wednesday 7.5 to 6.4.
“You remember seasons like this. You cherish seasons like this,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell told reporters, without wading into the MVP debate. “That’s the best part.”
Ohtani has had plenty of similar campaigns himself, of course, having won all four of his prior MVPs by unanimous first-place votes.
And a little more than a month ago, he seemed to be on a glide path to do so again.
But as the Dodgers have let the competition catch up in the standings, so too has their two-way star for the game’s highest individual honor.
And while Ohtani might downplay his budding rivalry with Crow-Armstrong, the Cubs’ young outfielder came out of Wednesday eyeing an even loftier team-wide goal.
“I would feel much more accomplished taking [the Dodgers] down at some point,” Crow-Armstrong said, before later adding: “I would be crazy to say that I don’t want to win an MVP, but if we’re talking about having priorities straight, I think mine are pretty straight.”
