MIAMI — Again within the constructing that hosted his most interesting baseball second, Shohei Ohtani inched nearer to historical past on Tuesday evening.
The Los Angeles Dodgers famous person hit the forty eighth dwelling run of his unprecedented marketing campaign, turning round a sweeper from Miami Marlins right-hander Darren McCaughan and launching it into the higher deck at loanDepot Park within the third inning. Ohtani now sits simply two dwelling runs and two stolen bases away from turning into the primary participant to attain 50-50 within the sport’s historical past.
The Dodgers have 11 video games remaining on their common season schedule. The probability of Ohtani reaching 50-50 improved with Tuesday’s two-run shot.
Ohtani didn’t homer or steal a base in the course of the Dodgers’ four-game street set in Atlanta, his longest stretch with out both since early June.
48/48 FOR SHOHEI OHTANI! pic.twitter.com/QoXCvhkrHI
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 17, 2024
The top of the mini-drought occurred throughout Ohtani’s first look in Miami since March 2023, when he and present Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto have been a part of the Samurai Japan aspect that toppled a set of MLB superstars in beating the US within the finale of the World Baseball Traditional.
He offered that evening’s seminal second, rising from the bullpen to document the ultimate three outs from the mound, hanging out then-teammate Mike Trout to finish the evening. Thus far, it’s the largest scene of Ohtani on the grand stage, at the least earlier than he makes his probably postseason debut with the Dodgers subsequent month
Ohtani, a two-time MVP now chasing his first such award within the Nationwide League, entered Tuesday batting .288 with a .982 OPS, the third-highest mark amongst certified main leaguers. He was additionally tied for third-most in RBIs with 108, and he sat second within the Nationwide League with 6.9 wins above alternative, in response to FanGraphs.
The 2-way star has authored his offensive masterpiece in a yr wherein he probably received’t throw a single pitch due to a second main elbow ligament reconstruction. That also didn’t impede him from signing a record-setting free-agent contract price $700 million final offseason. He has set a profession excessive in dwelling runs and is now inside one homer of Shawn Inexperienced’s single-season franchise document of 49 dwelling runs set in 2001.
Regardless of not with the ability to do what makes him baseball’s most unusual star, Ohtani has managed to place collectively a unicorn season. The newest step was a mammoth shot.
(Photograph: Sam Navarro / Getty Photographs)
