In today’s MLB, home runs and strikeouts are among the most common plays.
That’s why games without strikeouts are so rare.
The Los Angeles Dodgers were able, on Monday, to achieve the feat: their pitchers struck out six members of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but their batters went all game without being struck out.
“The Dodgers are the first Major League offense with no strikeouts in a game this season,” the team tweeted.
Naturally, the more you put the ball in play, the more chances you will get to get people on base and produce runs.
That’s precisely what the Dodgers did on Monday: make contact, get people on base, and score runs.
They won the game, 8-4, and produced 10 hits.
At 19-12, they are the team to beat in the NL West division.
Their offense is arguably the best in the game.
It’s hard to navigate a lineup with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Will Smith, young phenom Andy Pages, Teoscar Hernandez, and many other potent hitters.
As a group, LA has power, contact, and on-base ability, perhaps more of each than every other team in MLB.
They are hard to strike out.
It’s hard for an offense to go an entire game without going down on strikes, but the Dodgers did it.
It also requires a combination of factors that also include who is pitching on the other side.
In this occasion, they did it against a team that went to the World Series just a few months ago.
It makes it all the more impressive.
