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Shohei Ohtani can simply do whatever he wants on the baseball field.
Hit 50 home runs? Sure. Steal 50 bases? You got it. Do them both in the same season? Sounds good.
Lead the majors in earned run average? If you say so.
The Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star certainly isn’t hitting up to the expectations he has set for himself, owning a lifetime .951 OPS, posting an OPS of over 1.000 in three straight years, and hitting 54 and 55 homers in each of the last two seasons, respectively.
It’s so far been a down year at the plate for Ohtani, who’s hitting .240 with a .796 OPS. Not including the truncated 2020 season, those would be the lowest marks of his career.
But he is most definitely making up for it on the mound.
After posting seven scoreless innings against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, Ohtani is now pitching to an MLB-best 0.82 ERA.
Ohtani has allowed just four earned runs on the season, half of which came earlier this month against a stout Houston Astros offense, in 44.0 innings pitched.
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“(The) ideal situation is to be great on both sides of the ball,” Ohtani said after his gem in the Dodgers’ 4-0 victory over their NL West rivals, via The Athletic. “But how I look at it is if I’m not contributing offensively, then I know I can contribute on the pitching side of things and vice versa. So I take it as that.”
“He wants to be the best pitcher in baseball, and right now, he’s doing it,” manager Dave Roberts added. “You can tell he’s hyper-focused on the preparation part of it, and then obviously the days that he starts, the execution.”
Ohtani did not pitch in 2024 and returned to the mound last summer, pitching to a 2.87 ERA in 14 starts amid his 1.014 OPS, good for his fourth MVP in the last five seasons.
The Dodgers have been careful with Ohtani’s workload, sometimes keeping him as a pitcher only this season, as it’s well known his offensive numbers take a hit when he’s on the mound, understandably so.
“It’s interesting because last year, there was a lot of conversations that he shouldn’t pitch and just be a hitter,” Roberts said. “Now, it’s kind of flipped on its head. I can’t imagine what goes through his mind, but I do feel clarity on how we’re managing him. There’s no one way to go about it. You’re just trying to be fluid, and react and respond to how he’s feeling.”
But at the very least, the Dodgers currently have the best pitcher in baseball this season hitting at the top of their lineup. It’s like the pre-DH era, except the pitcher is batting first instead of ninth.
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And it should surprise nobody if, and when, Ohtani finds the bat — while still mowing down everyone he faces 60 feet, 6 inches away.
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