The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently breezing through yet another regular season of dominance, biding their time until the postseason arrives and they can get serious about capturing a third consecutive World Series. Tuesday night saw them pepper extra-base hits all over Citizens Bank Park in a 9-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies that ran their MLB-best record to 65-38. At this point it feels like it will take an act of God to keep Los Angeles from adding to its dynasty. Or something weird, like Shohei Ohtani suffering a freak injury.
Which is something that came close to happening thanks to some friendly fire after the final out was recorded in the Dodgers’ latest victory. Reserve outfielder Alex Call created a brief scare when he hopped up over the dugout railing to join the on-field handshake line, spiking Ohtani’s left elbow in the process.
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As one would expect, that didn’t feel too good for the dual-threat superstar.
Ohtani is tough as nails and was able to shake it off. But can you imagine those 10-15 seconds for Call after accidentally delivering a flying kick to the most important asset in all of baseball? Probably not great. Throw in the fact that this was a relatively meaningless regular season game and things could have been really, really bad.
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Then again, the Dodgers are so impressively deep that they would likely find a way to navigate a prolonged Ohtani absence and not break much of a sweat through October.
We’ll see if they take it a bit easier with their revelry the rest of the season now that there’s evidence that hopping over fences to save a few seconds has a much higher potential upside than benefit.
