Pages’ blistering start

Andy Pages opened 2026 hitting like a cleanup hitter and a table-setter at the same time: through 13 games, the Dodgers outfielder had 22 hits in 49 at-bats, with 4 home runs and 16 runs batted in. (espn.com) That start came while Los Angeles went 10-3, so this was not empty production piled up in losses. Pages drove in runs in seven of those first 13 games, which turned him from a bottom-half lineup piece into a nightly problem for pitchers. (espn.com, espn.com) The shape of the surge matters. In the Dodgers’ three-game opening series against Arizona, Pages hit his first home run on March 26, then he followed with multi-hit games against Cleveland, Washington, and Toronto instead of cooling off after one hot weekend. (espn.com) The loudest stretch came on the road. Over six games in Washington and Toronto from April 3 through April 8, Pages went 10-for-25 with 2 home runs, 7 runs batted in, and 3 doubles while the Dodgers won five of those six games. (espn.com, espn.com) This did not come out of nowhere, but it is a jump. In 2025, Pages played 116 games and hit.248 with 13 home runs, and the split that stood out was a.357 average against left-handed pitching compared with.213 against right-handed pitching. (mlb.com) Early in 2026, the damage was showing up against everybody. His first 13 games included hits against Arizona, Cleveland, Washington, and Toronto, which meant four different pitching staffs had already seen the same problem: hard contact early in counts and extra-base hits when they missed over the plate. (espn.com) That changes how a series gets planned. A hitter with 16 runs batted in by Game 13 stops being the guy pitchers attack to get back on track and becomes the guy they pitch around when runners are on base. (espn.com) The Dodgers also make hot starts harder to dismiss because the lineup around him is full of stars. When Pages is hitting in the same order as Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, pitchers cannot simply give him four wide ones all weekend without paying for it somewhere else. (mlb.com) The next test was whether this opening burst would survive the league’s first adjustment. Los Angeles came home to face Texas on April 10, then the New York Mets on April 13, which gave Pages a quick run of new scouting reports, new bullpens, and fewer surprise fastballs. (espn.com) For 13 games, though, the numbers were simple and brutal: a.449 batting average, a 1.257 on-base plus slugging mark, and 4 home runs before most regulars had even settled into April. That is how a young outfielder turns a hot week into a real spot on every opponent’s pregame card. (espn.com)