Mets win series over Dodgers, Oneil Cruz breaks record
The Dominican slugger for the Pittsburgh Pirates crushed a home run, sending the ball flying off his bat at 122.9 miles per hour.
Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers player
(AFP) The New York Mets won the series tiebreaker game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday which also featured Dominican slugger Oneil Cruz recording the hardest-hit ball since tracking began.
In Queens, the Mets defeated the reigning World Series champions 3–1, taking the three-game series between two top title contenders.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ superstar, opened the scoring in the first inning with a 125-foot home run to right-center field at Citi Field.
The Mets, who had come from behind in Saturday’s win, responded with a Pete Alonso homer that brought in another run off Dominican Juan Soto.
Soto’s pickoff error opened the door for Puerto Rican Francisco Lindor to score the winning run.
Although he hasn’t fully hit his stride in his new uniform yet, Soto outshined Ohtani this weekend in the showdown between the two highest-paid players in the Majors.
The New York team started the season with a 32-21 record, matching the Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs.
Oneil Cruz was one of Sunday’s standout players, hitting a record-setting home run despite the Pittsburgh Pirates falling 6-5 to the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Dominican’s 11th home run of the season was a rocket off the bat at 122.9 miles per hour (197.7 km/h), marking the hardest-hit ball recorded since Statcast began tracking in 2015.
Cruz’s missile sailed 132 yards beyond the PNC Park grandstand and splashed into the Allegheny River waters.
"It felt good. I was looking for a good pitch to hit and I hit it really well," the ballplayer said afterward. "It feels even better to know that it's the hardest hit in Statcast history."
The previous record was also held by Cruz, who hit a 122.4 mph (196.9 km/h) single in August 2022.
The Dominican’s homer sparked a five-run comeback by the Pirates, giving them a 5-3 lead, but the Brewers rallied with three runs in the eighth inning to secure the win.
Another standout performance of the day came from American pitcher Tarik Skubal, who helped lead the Detroit Tigers to a 5-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians.
The left-handed pitcher retired Cleveland’s first 15 batters and earned the first complete-game shutout of his career.
Skubal, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, allowed just two hits and struck out 13 batters while throwing 94 pitches.
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