Just about everything that involves Shohei Ohtani these days involves some sort of record achievement or pursuit thereof. NBC 10 PHILADELPHIA’s Mike Gavin, who knows the path for his Phillies to potentially advance in the post-season might very well go through Ohtani and his Dodgers, compiled this compelling compendium last week:
Shohei Ohtani has a 50/50 chance.
The Los Angeles Dodgers star could become the first player to have 50-plus home runs and 50-plus stolen bases in Major League Baseball history.
He’s now looking to hit and run his way into the history books for what would be considered the greatest combination of power and speed in a single season.
It wouldn’t be the first statistical club that Ohtani is the lone member of. He’s already the only player in the history of the American League and National League to record 30 homers at the plate and 10 wins on the mound in a single season (2022), as well as 30 homers and 100 strikeouts (2021).
Now he has a chance to make history on the bases, by trotting around them and swiping them.
And last show, the show that seemingly never ends this season returned for a two-night stint where it began, Anaheim Stadium, where exactly one year to the day of his last activity as a Los Angeles Angel he led his new team, currently the best in the game, into battle. USA TODAY’s Cory Woodruff was on hand:
Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani finally made his grand return to Angel Stadium after leaving the Los Angeles Angels in the offseason.
While it had to sting that Ohtani left for the other major baseball franchise in L.A., Angels fans gave the baseball great a standing ovation as he stepped up to bat against his former team on Tuesday evening.
This was such a classy move by Angels fans to give one of the best players who ever sported an Angels jersey a warm welcome back home, as he undoubtedly gave them plenty of wonderful memories over the years.
It was a significant enough event that the JAPAN TIMES even had reporters on hand to memorialize the results, good for the Doyers, meh for Ohtani-san:
Mookie Betts’ three-run homer capped a four-run 10th inning and helped lift the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night in Anaheim, California.
Two-time American League MVP Shohei Ohtani played his first regular-season game at Angel Stadium since leaving the Angels for the Dodgers in the offseason. He went 1-for-4 with one RBI, two runs and a walk.
So at the moment Ohtani is the sole member of the 44/46 club, holding numbers that augmented against a surprisingly pourous Arizona Diamondback squad that has merely been the best team in baseball since mid-June and was giving the Dodgers more than a run for its money. Now up six games with 20-ish to play, the Dodgers’ chances to repeat as NL Western Division champions for the third season in a row, and the 11th in the last 12, are fairly strong.
Frankly, better than the odds you might get on Ohtani and the Dodgers winning it all, or even Ohtani actually winning National League MVP.
While the Dodgers are indeed tops for now, they will almost certainly not win 100 games. And in the last two years, even though they did they were early outs in the post-season, mostly due to an oft-injured and imploding pitching staff where Dodger management has had to be extremely creative and consistently reactive. With Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw both injured, were the playoffs to begin today their “ace” would be the mediocre and mercurial Jack Flaherty, a trade deadline pick-up who has a 1-3 post-season record, followed by unproven youngsters Gavin Stone and Bobby Miller. The closer for the moment is fellow trade deadline snag Michael Kopech.
Ironically, the one thing the Dodgers need most to win in 2024 and what was a driving force behind their $700M investment–his ability to pitch–is off the table.
And while as a DH there’s less of an issue for Ohtani to play right to the end than there might be for a position player, it’s no guarantee that six homers and four stolen bases is a lock. Which given the expectations he’s put forth might be seen by some voters as a letdown. Especially when there’s a pretty amazing speed/power story occurring across the country which last night made some headlines of it own, courtesy of MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo:
David Stearns is not prone to hyperbole. Generally, the Mets’ president of baseball operations likes to keep his comments confined to the little slice of reality directly in front of him. But when asked Tuesday afternoon about the National League MVP race, Stearns posited, without any prodding, that Francisco Lindor is having “perhaps the greatest individual position-player season in the history of this franchise.
His two-run homer Tuesday — which elicited a loud chorus of “M-V-P!” chants from the Citi Field faithful — gave the Mets a lead they never relinquished in a 7-2 win over the Red Sox, which also featured a standout effort from David Peterson on his 29th birthday to keep the Mets a half-game behind the Braves for the final NL Wild Card spot.
In no uncertain terms, Lindor is giving the Mets an MVP-caliber effort. He has played in all 139 of the team’s games with a .273/.343/.500 slash line, 30 homers and 26 stolen bases. Among his other accolades:
- Lindor on Tuesday reached 30 home runs for the second consecutive season and the fifth time in his career, matching Ernie Banks for the second-most 30-homer seasons by a primary shortstop in Major League history. (Alex Rodriguez has the most, with seven.)
- He’s also one of six switch-hitters with at least five 30-homer seasons, joining Mickey Mantle, Mark Teixeira, Chipper Jones, Lance Berkman and Eddie Murray.
Unlike Ohtani, Lindor is a necessity to play to the end if the Mets are to be involved in the post-season in a year following an incredibly disappointing one where they ended under .500. The Mets have had their own rash of injuries to their pitching, making Lindor’s contributions to them arguably at least as significant as Ohtani’s have to the Blue.
How this all ends up? Clearly, there are compelling cases to be made by both.
At this point, it’s a coin flip. And we know what those odds are.
Courage…