Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. It won’t make Mavericks fans feel any better about the trade, but it’s pretty cool how Anthony Davis beat the Hawks almost by himself.
In today’s SI:AM:
Of course Ohtani did that
No matter which side of the Pacific Ocean they’ve been on, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been unstoppable this season. With a dramatic 6–5 walk-off victory over the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night, the Dodgers improved to 8–0.
It wasn’t easy. Starting pitcher Blake Snell, one of the Dodgers’ big offseason additions, struggled in his second start of the season. He allowed five runs on five hits with four walks and just two strikeouts in five innings of work, as the Dodgers fell behind 5–0 in the second. But they slowly began digging themselves out of that hole. Tommy Edman (a trade deadline acquisition from last season who the Dodgers re-signed this winter) got them on the board with a two-run homer in the second. Michael Conforto (another free-agent signing) followed that up with a solo shot in the fourth to cut the deficit to 5–3. Max Muncy tied the game with a two-run double in the bottom of the eighth, setting the stage for a dramatic bottom of the ninth.
Shohei Ohtani was due up second and on the first pitch he saw, he did exactly what you’d expect him to do.
SHO 'EM HOW TO WALK IT OFF! pic.twitter.com/DwG3MTUEIg
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 3, 2025
Expect the Dodgers to have plenty of other games like that this season. That’s what happens when a team has an excellent pitching staff and powerful offense. There will certainly be games where both the pitchers and hitters are on top of their game and they can cruise to victory. But even on nights when the starter struggles, the Dodgers have the bats to erase an early deficit.
Having a hitter as otherworldly as Ohtani is obviously a major part of what makes the Dodgers so dangerous, but they’ve been excellent top to bottom thus far this season. Mookie Betts has three homers in six games since returning from a mystery stomach ailment that caused him to lose 20 pounds. Catcher Will Smith has an NL-best .607 on-base percentage, Edman has hit four home runs and Conforto has a 1.237 OPS. On the pitching side, Dodgers starters have only allowed a combined eight earned runs.
The Dodgers won’t go 162–0 this season, but this hot start is in line with what everyone expected from them this season. Their eight-game winning streak is the longest ever by a defending champion to open a season, according to ESPN, having surpassed the previous mark set by the 1933 New York Yankees. Los Angeles is also just the second team in the past 20 years to win at least eight straight games to open a season. The record for the longest season-opening winning streak is 13 games, which was achieved by the 1982 Atlanta Braves, ’87 Milwaukee Brewers and 2023 Tampa Bay Rays.
At the same time, Wednesday’s loss was the latest disappointment in a brutal start for the Braves, who are now 0–7. It isn’t exactly a historic streak. They’re the 28th team in MLB history to start a season with at least seven straight losses and only a third of the way to the record of 21 straight losses by the 1988 Baltimore Orioles. But it’s a dismal start for a team that entered the season with aspirations of winning the division. No team in the history of baseball has lost its first seven games and then gone on to make the playoffs.
The current 14-team playoff structure makes a postseason berth more likely for these Braves than for the 27 teams who preceded them, but it’s still a big hole to dig out of in a division that includes the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets. If Atlanta loses its next game (the home opener on Friday against the Miami Marlins), it might really be time to start panicking. Only eight teams in the past 20 years have had a losing streak of at least eight games at any point in the season and gone on to win their division.
The Braves dealt with plenty of hardships last season (including injuries to star players Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider) but were still able to squeak into the postseason at 89–73. With Acuña and Strider back, this season was supposed to be different. But after sputtering out of the gate and losing their biggest offseason acquisition, outfielder Jurickson Profar, to an 80-game PED suspension, any sense of optimism has been wiped out.
The best of Sports Illustrated
• We have a new series where iconic athletes look back on the first time they were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The first installment features golfer Ben Crenshaw, with an excellent Digital Cover piece by Bob Harig and a video interview with Crenshaw.
• Despite—or perhaps because of—the lack of upsets, Pat Forde makes the case for why this men’s Final Four has the potential for some real fireworks.
• Houston is back in the Final Four thanks to its excellent guard play. But Kevin Sweeney explains how Kelvin Sampson followed a different formula to find this team’s star point guard.
• Our experts will be rolling out their NFL mock drafts over the next couple weeks. Here’s Gilberto Manzano’s projection for the first round.
• Tom Verducci breaks down why Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers is off to such a terrible start.
• Stanford’s Megha Ganne shot a career-best 63 in the opening round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. John Schwarb has more on her lights-out day and the rest of the tournament.
• Joel Embiid will undergo yet another knee surgery after being ruled out for the rest of the season.
• The U.S. and Mexico will host the 2031 Women’s World Cup.
The top five…
… things I saw yesterday:
5. The Dodgers’ celebration poking fun at a Shohei Ohtani commercial.
4. Yet another goal for Alex Ovechkin, who’s now just three away from passing Wayne Gretzky.
3. Anthony Davis’s go-ahead shot and game-winning defense to give the Mavericks a much-needed victory as their playoff hopes hang in the balance.
2. The Brewers’ walk-off squeeze bunt.
1. Elly De La Cruz’s sliding catch in foul territory after ranging all the way over from shortstop.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Dodgers and Braves Headed in Opposite Directions After L.A.’s Walk-Off Win.
