Dodgers: Albert Pujols Was Apparently the Guy That Called Shohei Ohtani During the Homerun Derby
The 2021 Homerun Derby was easily one the best that baseball fans have ever seen. It didn’t feature any Dodgers players, but it was still amazing. The round between Angels’ Shohei Ohtani and Nationals Juan Soto was quite literally the greatest round possibly of all time.
In the middle of that matchup, Shohei famously received a phone call that changed the course of his round. The call was supposedly from teammate Mike Trout which made for a great story. But according to Dodgers infielder Justin Turner, it was not Mike Trout.
And he’s easily one of our favorites.
Turner talked about the call on Kourtney Turner’s Holding Kourt podcast recently. According to JT, it was a Dodgers player that made the call to Shohei to get him going again.
Before coming to the Dodgers, Ohtani and Pujols were obviously teammates on the Angels. Nothing like getting a call from a future first-ballot Hall of Famer to get your swing moving in the right direction. And boy, did it work.
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Ohtani would go on to hit a total of 28 homeruns and went to 2 additional swing-offs against Soto. He would eventually fall in the final swing-off when Soto edged him out with a total of 31. But the call from Dodgers first baseman Pujols certainly seemed to get him right.
Shoutout to Albert!
Old man Pujols has delivered for the Dodgers. Every day his BA rises from the time the time they got him. He may not be a make or break guy, but he is definitely a contributor.
Gotta love that guy. What’s really nice to watch is when he’s in the batters box, on the field, or anywhere on the bases, he is always smiling and all opposing players are talking with him. You can always count on him to give you a good at bat—- unlike AOC (not that AOC in New York ) Always Out Cody