nl mvp talk

CHICAGO — Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel went directly to Shohei Ohtani’s competition for NL MVP with his gripe.

Ebel, who coached Cubs star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic this year, gave him grief for serving as the designated hitter on Wednesday. He couldn’t play center field every day?

Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong had just traded leadoff home runs, so Crow-Armstrong told reporters that he shot back with: “Well, it took your guy 10 pitches, it only took me one.”

He was exaggerating slightly. Ohtani’s leadoff homer came on the seventh pitch of the at-bat against Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga. And that, of course, wasn’t really how Crow-Armstrong felt.

“A [seven]-pitch at-bat to start the game and finish it off with a 110 [mph] ball at 20 degrees is pretty ridiculous,” Crow-Armstrong said.

The National League MVP race transformed into a head-to-head showdown between the frontrunners at Wrigley Field on Wednesday, as the Dodgers fell to the Cubs 7-6.

“Over the course of a season, there’s a lot of ups and downs,” Ohtani, a four-time MVP, said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s too early to think about that. So in a way for me it’s more important for the team to win and for me to contribute to that.”

Though Crow-Armstrong played along with the MVP talk, he came around to a similar sentiment.

“I would be crazy to say that I don’t want to win an MVP, but if we’re talking about having priorities straight, I think mine are pretty straight,” he said. “It’s not on the forefront of my mind. It’s fun to joke about and it’s fun to acknowledge and I think it’s absolutely OK to pay attention to. But it’s not following me up to the plate.

“If you guys want to talk about all this back and forth, like, I really should go get in the lab and start pitching. I really should.”

Ohtani was considered the runaway MVP favorite early in the year, while his pitching performance also put him in the Cy Young conversation. But his extended absence from the mound (left knee issue) and Crow-Armstrong’s contributions on offense and defense have made the race more interesting.

Crow-Armstrong entered Wednesday leading the majors in fWAR (7.5), followed by Ohtani (6.4).

Chicago Cubs designated hitter Pete Crow-Armstrong drops the bat after hitting his second home run against the Dodgers.

(Jessie Alcheh / Associated Press)

“Simply put, just having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as [Ohtani] feels, it’s awesome and it’s a nice nod,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s cool. But … I would feel much more accomplished taking them (the Dodgers) down at some point. I want to see this group (the Cubs) in October because I think it’ll be a dangerous, dangerous group in the playoffs.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts irked Cubs fans a week and a half ago when, asked to evaluate Ohtani’s season overall, he said he’ll still be the NL MVP.

“I haven’t followed the race,” Roberts said before the game Wednesday. “I have followed what Pete’s doing, and he’s figured some things out with the bat. “He’s having a heck of a year. And he has rightfully made it a lot closer than most people expected. He’s had a tremendous season.”

That continued in the finale of the three-game series, for Crow-Armstrong and Ohtani.

Ohtani, struck first, notching the 32nd leadoff homer of his career and 29th as a Dodger, breaking a tie with Davey Lopes for the second-most in franchise history, behind Mookie Betts (32).

In the bottom half of the inning, Crow-Armstrong matched Ohtani with a tying blast.

The next inning, he delivered a two-run double, and in the fourth, he mashed a two-run blast off the right-field scoreboard to put the Cubs up 5-1.

Not to be outdone, Ohtani led off the fifth inning with a single, but the Dodgers failed to score. Then in the eighth, he made it his first multi-homer game of the season, with a two-run shot that trimmed the Cubs’ lead to 7-6.

“He’s a great player,” Ohtani said of Crow-Armstrong. “But I’m really focused on myself on the hitting side of things right now, really working towards hopefully getting back on the mound and working on that side of the game as well.”

Ohtani’s timeline back to the mound is nebulous at this point. Roberts didn’t have a specific day circled to resume playing catch, and Ohtani didn’t provide one, either.

“It’s getting pretty good day by day,” Ohtani said of his knee. “It’s hard to tell at this point what the schedule is going to look like. First I need to do [weighted ply balls], then go into long toss, then go into a bullpen progression. Rather than rush the progression of this I would rather make sure we’re headed in the right direction. But making sure we’re taking the right steps.”

The Dodgers’ rotation depth means he doesn’t necessarily need to build up to a full starter’s workload by the end of the year. Ohtani said he’d leave the timing of his progression up to the front office.

“Any innings we get from him are bonuses, given he’s a two-way player,” Roberts said. “Whether it’s one inning, two innings, three innings, I’m not too concerned about the timeline. … I certainly see him as a starter, but how much he could give us, to then have somebody [piggybacking] behind him, that we don’t know yet.”

Freddie Freeman pulled

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman left the game in the bottom of the fifth inning after a pitch hit his right hand. But X-rays came back negative, Roberts said.

“I obviously didn’t come out of that at-bat because I knew it hit my bat as well,” Freeman said. “It hit bat, then hand and pinched my hand onto the bat. Next pitch, I swung. I could swing, and I swung again. As the adrenaline wore off, pain got a little bit more.”

Freeman said he expects to be ready to return to the lineup by the Dodgers’ next game, against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday.