LOS ANGELES.- With a home run in Wednesday’s victory of the Cleveland Guardiansthe Dominican José Ramírez continued to get closer to the select club of players with 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a Major League season ( MLB) baseball.
Ramírez reached 38 home runs this season with a spectacular 127-meter hit that sealed the Guardians’ 5-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
The duel was tied at two runs when the Dominican broke through in the bottom of the eighth inning with a home run that drove two more runs by his compatriot Ángel Martínez and the American Steven Kwan.
Ramírez, 32, already has 40 stolen bases on his account and now needs to hit two home runs in the last three games of the regular season to join the 40-40 club.
Only six players in history have achieved that mark in a season: the Cuban José Canseco (1988), the Americans Barry Bonds (1996) and Alex Rodríguez (1998), the Dominican Alfonso Soriano (2006), the Venezuelan Ronald Acuña Jr. (2023) and the Japanese Shohei Ohtani (2024).
Chicago holds on as best it can
In other results on Wednesday, the Chicago White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 4-3 with an agonizing score by Cuban Miguel Vargas in the tenth inning.
The Chicago team, which the day before had come back against the Angels in the last breath, once again avoided reaching the all-time record for losses in a Major League season.
The White Sox remain at 120 losses for now, the same as the New York Mets suffered in 1962, and they need to win their last four games of the regular season to avoid being left alone with the negative record.
Last in the American League Central division, Chicago will still host another game against the Angels on Thursday and then play a three-game road series against the Detroit Tigers before the close of the regular season on Sunday.
In the fight for the first positions, the New York Yankees suffered a second consecutive defeat against the Baltimore Orioles by 9-7 and will continue waiting to secure the American League East title.
For now, the ‘Bronx Bombers (92-66) continue to lead the sector with four wins over the Orioles and four games still to play.
