Dayton Daily News

Ohtani’s 473-foot drive leads 6-homer onslaught for Dodgers over Red Sox

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit a 473-foot home run and the Los Angeles Dodgers went deep six times in a 9-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Sunday.

Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Gavin Lux, Austin Barnes and Jason Heyward also connected as Los Angeles swept the three-game series.

It was the 25th time the Dodgers launched at least six homers in a game and first since 2022 against Kansas City. Five came off Boston starter Kutter Crawford (6-8).

Jarren Duran, the MVP of last Tuesday’s All-Star Game, homered and drove in four runs for the Red Sox (53-45), who fell a game behind the Royals (55-45) for the final AL wild card.

James Paxton (8-2) allowed three runs on four hits and struck out seven in five innings. Boston rallied for three runs in the ninth, but Daniel Hudson came in for his sixth save.

Barnes’ solo shot gave the Dodgers a 5-2 lead in the fifth, and Ohtani drove a cutter from Crawford 473 feet over the bleachers to become the first NL player with 30 homers this season. Aaron Judge leads the majors with 35.

According to fans in the area, the ball sailed between the pavilion roof and an advertisem­ent sign in right-center field, but it cleared the concourse and landed on the walkway in the ballpark plaza.

It is the fourth straight season in which Ohtani has homered at least 30 times.

Crawford allowed six runs and seven hits in five-plus innings.

Boston took a 2-0 lead three pitches into the game. Romy Gonzalez led off with a double on the first pitch before Duran drove Paxton’s fastball into the bleachers in left-center.

The Dodgers tied it in the bottom half on Freeman’s solo shot to right-center and Lux’s RBI double. Hernández, the winner of last Monday’s Home Run Derby, gave Los Angeles the lead when he connected on a drive that just got over the short wall near the right-field corner.

Lux had a solo shot in the fourth and Heyward, activated off the injured list before the game, hit a tworun drive off former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen in the eighth.

Knvul Sheikh

Amina AlTai had always prided herself on her drive and resilience. When she began experienci­ng brain fog and fatigue, AlTai, 39, thought it was from working long hours in her marketing job. So she started writing down reminders to keep herself on track. But then her hair started falling out, she gained and lost a lot of weight and she started having gastrointe­stinal issues.

AlTai was certain that something was wrong. But the first six doctors she saw didn’t take her seriously, she said. Some told her she had so much hair that losing a little bit shouldn’t be a problem. Several said she seemed healthy, and dismissed her symptoms as simply stress. It was only when another physician ordered blood tests that AlTai was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease and celiac disease, two autoimmune conditions that can damage the thyroid and the small intestine.

“They called me and told me, ‘Don’t go into work. Go to the hospital instead, because you’re days away from multiple organ failure,’” AlTai remembered. The two chronic diseases had upended her ability to regulate hormones and absorb critical vitamins and nutrients.

Scientists now know that stress is intimately linked with many chronic diseases: It can drive immune changes and inflammati­on in the body that can worsen symptoms of conditions like asthma, heart disease, arthritis, lupus and inflammato­ry bowel disease. Meanwhile, many issues caused by stress — headaches, heartburn, blood pressure problems, mood changes — can also be symptoms of chronic illnesses.

For doctors and patients, this overlap can be confusing: Is stress the sole cause of someone’s symptoms, or is something more serious at play?

“It’s really hard to disentangl­e,” said Scott Russo, director of the Brain-Body Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

How stress may trigger chronic disease

Stress naturally kick-starts what’s called the fight-or-flight response. When we encounter a threat, our blood pressure and heart rate climb, muscles tense and our body concentrat­es blood sugar to make it easier to react quickly, said Dr. Charles Hattemer, a specialist in cardiovasc­ular health at the University of Cincinnati.

If people are stressed for weeks or months, their bodies may be unable to keep up as well with other functions, leading to problems like forgetfuln­ess, fatigue and trouble sleeping. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol can chronicall­y elevate blood pressure or increase plaque deposits, which can damage the heart over time, Hattemer said.

There are also hints that stress can contribute to the over-activation of the immune system and lead to inflammati­on. In a study of 186 patients, researcher­s in Italy found that 67% of adults with celiac disease had experience­d a stressful life event before their diagnosis.

More recently, Russo and his colleagues showed in two

studies that distressed mice had higher levels of neutrophil­s, which cause inflammati­on, and fewer T cells and B cells in the bloodstrea­m that could produce antibodies or kill cells infected with viruses.

He and his colleagues also found patients with major depressive disorder had similar imbalances in immune cells compared to healthy controls. Researcher­s believe that the body changes the makeup of immune cells circulatin­g in the blood as a way of reducing damage from an infection or acute stress, Russo said.

When faced with chronic stress, though, the body sometimes “just can’t shut the immune system down,” Russo said.

For people who may already be at risk of chronic diseases, whether because of their genetic predisposi­tion, exposure to chemicals, air pollution or viral infections, a prolonged period of stress may tip them over the edge toward becoming sick.

“We all have physical ailments and weaknesses,” Russo said. “Stress just exploits those and makes them worse.”

When symptoms become a source of stress

For patients with chronic illnesses, the same stressors that might have triggered their symptoms can make it hard to get a handle on their condition.

And some said they don’t always feel that doctors appreciate how hard it can be to manage stress, especially when they are feeling sick. When Teresa Rhodes was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis several decades ago, a doctor suggested she exercise more to reduce her stress and strengthen her joints, which were being damaged by the disease.

But “the symptoms of the disease themselves were stressors,” said Rhodes, who is now 66. “It’s very hard to exercise when you’re so fatigued.” It was only after other stressors in life lifted — her children grew up and she left a difficult marriage — that she was able to get enough rest and eventually begin working out again.

Many doctors are not trained to ask about sources of stress or counsel patients about the impact of stress, said Alyse Bedell, a clinician-researcher who specialize­s in the how stress affects digestive health at UChicago Medicine. A 2015 survey of more than 30,000 patient visits to doctors offices found that primary care doctors only counseled patients about stress management during 3% of visits.

Patients said that instead of simply suggesting they cut out sources of stress, doctors could work with them on small ways they can manage stress every day. Once AlTai was diagnosed and started taking medication for both her conditions, she felt well enough to make dietary changes needed to address the nutrient deficienci­es caused by her diseases. She started going for regular walks and meditating in the morning.

AlTai eventually left her marketing job and became an executive coach, allowing her to set her own schedule, she said. Being hospitaliz­ed and diagnosed with two chronic diseases made her realize those changes were necessary.

“I call it my ‘stop’ moment, because literally it stopped me in my tracks,” she said. “I had to really reevaluate my relationsh­ip with work and success and stress.”