LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers filled up the box score in Saturday’s blowout over the Yankees, setting a season high with 21 hits. All nine starters scored at least once.
Max Muncy hit two home runs and drove in a career-high seven runs, and within was his 200th career home run. Dalton Rushing, who did not start, hit his first major league home run.
But what caught my eye was the bottom of the order, with Tommy Edman batting eighth and playing second base and Hyeseong Kim batting ninth. Kim made his first major league start at shortstop, filling in for Mookie Betts who is out with a fracture in his left toe, but also played center field later in the game, and made stellar defensive plays at both positions.
At the plate is where the pair stood out.
Edman, who entered Saturday with four hits over 27 at-bats in his previous eight games, doubled twice and singled twice on Saturday. He scored twice and drove in a pair. Four hits matched Edman’s career high, done four other times, including April 15 this year.
Kim reached base five times on Saturday, with a home run, double, two singles, and a walk. The home run was hit off left-hander Brent Headrick in the second inning, turning an 8-0 lead to 10-0. It’s the only time so far in the majors the lefty-hitting Kim has faced a left-handed pitcher. His other 47 plate appearances are against right-handers.
“There’s just something about him, that youthful enthusiasm, that joy. He’s just happy to be out there, and guys feed off the energy. And he takes good at-bats, he competes,” manager Dave Roberts said of Kim. “He’s an all-around good baseball player. Giving him some runway, he’s making good on it and taking advantage.”
Getting four hits out of a No. 9 hitter has been rare throughout baseball history, especially in the National League, because until this decade there was no universal designated hitter. The No. 9 spot was occupied by pitchers, who are famously terrible hitters as a collective group.
Kim is the first non-pitcher Dodgers ninth batter with four hits in a game, but he’s also their first No. 9 hitter of any kind with a four-hit game in 55 years. The previous was by pitcher Claude Osteen, who singled twice, homered, doubled, and drove in four runs in a 16-3 pasting of the Giants in San Francisco on May 26, 1970.
“It is a funny thing, but I have pitched real well before in Candlestick Park but have had trouble winning,” Osteen told reporters after the game, per Tom Kane of The Sacramento Bee. “When I had a 6-0 lead at the end of four innings I believe I let down a little bit. I called my catcher Tom Haller out for a little talk and told him that we should treat this game as if it was 1-0.”
Osteen did just fine, finishing out the complete game win. He was also supported by Haller at the plate, with three singles and a double, with two RBI. Haller, like Osteen, scored three times.
Haller was batting eighth in that 1970 game in San Francisco, which brings us back to Saturday against the Yankees.
Only four times in the modern era have the Dodgers gotten four hits out of their No. 8 and No. 9 hitters in the same game. Before Edman and Kim, the previous three duos were pitcher and catcher.
September 24, 1901
Catcher Deacon McGuire doubled twice, singled twice, and scored three runs. His battery made Frank Kitson singled three times and homered, driving in five. Brooklyn beat the Reds in Cincinnati, 16-2.
September 4, 1924
Catcher Zack Taylor had four singles, scored three runs, and drove in a pair Pitcher Dutch Ruether singled three times, tripled, drove in two and scored once in the Dodgers’ 9-1 win over the Braves in Boston.
May 26, 1970
Haller and Osteen each had four hits and scored three times. Osteen homered and doubled in the Dodgers’ 16-3 win at San Francisco.
May 31, 2025
Edman and Kim each had four hits as the Dodgers blew out the Yankees 18-2.
