How Shohei Ohtani, without half his powers, rewrote MLB history again and went 50/50

Major League Baseball

Updated Sep. 19, 2024 10:57 p.m. ET

When Shohei Ohtani‘s second major elbow reconstruction threatened to reveal the mortality of baseball’s modern marvel, rendering the two-time MVP incapable of doing half of what has already made him one of sport’s legendary characters, baseball’s unicorn found another way to accomplish something no one had ever seen.

And he did it with one of the single greatest performances in baseball history.

Less than a month after hitting a walk-off grand slam to become the fastest player ever to reach 40 homers and 40 stolen bases in a single season, Ohtani brought another flare for the dramatic Thursday afternoon to loanDepot park, the same place he pitched Team Japan to a World Baseball Classic title a year ago.

He entered Thursday’s series finale in Miami two homers and one stolen base short of the first 50/50 season in MLB history. He departed with 51 homers and 51 stolen bases after MLB’s first ever six-hit, three-homer, two-steal game — an otherworldly performance that he said surprised even himself.

“It’s something I’m going to cherish for a very long time,” Ohtani said afterward through translator Will Ireton.

That will especially be the case considering what his individual performance meant in the bigger picture.

For the first time in his illustrious eight-year career, Ohtani will be playing postseason baseball. He made sure of that with his 6-for-6, franchise-record 10-RBI game in a 20-4 win that clinched a spot in the playoffs for the Dodgers and earned a curtain call on the road for Ohtani, who also set the single-season franchise record for home runs in the process of the festivities.

In the clubhouse afterward, the Dodgers toasted to their 12th straight postseason appearance and the new superstar whose career day helped them get there.

“The goal is to win the last game in October,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But you’ve still got to enjoy moments.”

There have been many worth remembering in Ohtani’s singular baseball career.

The two-way sensation redefined what was considered possible from the moment he arrived to the major leagues as a 23-year-old rookie in 2018, hitting 51% better than league average and logging a 3.31 ERA on the mound. There had been hitters who competed for MVP awards while launching homers at a prolific rate. There had been pitchers who contended for Cy Young Awards while touching triple digits. Those skills were considered mutually exclusive until the emergence of baseball’s enigma.

Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, then, that as Ohtani continues to defy any preconceived notions of what an athlete can achieve — even now, in a year in which he can’t pitch (at least yet) — his latest record included another dichotomy.

Shohei Ohtani becomes MLB’s first player with 50 HRs, 50 SBs

Part of what makes Ohtani’s awe-inspiring 50/50 season so extraordinary, and why so few players have come anywhere close to hitting those marks, is the contradiction it presents: Every home run is one fewer opportunity to steal a base. That’s before getting to the more obvious juxtaposition: the physical bulk required to hit 50 homers is in direct conflict with the speed needed to steal 50 bases.

And yet, Ohtani conquered the quandaries at an unprecedented rate, an especially remarkable feat for a 30-year-old designated hitter.

Over the last 20 years, there have been eight other instances of a player in his age-29 season or older stealing at least 50 bags. Juan Pierre did it in 2007 and 2010. Dee Strange-Gordon, Jacoby Ellsbury, Rajai Davis, Eric Byrnes, Brian Roberts and Scott Podsednik each did it once. Add up all of their home runs from those seasons, and you get 50: one less than Ohtani has already hit this year alone.

“Hopefully, when he’s pitching next year, he can mirror somewhat what he’s doing offensively,” Roberts said. “But I think there’s something to just, the kind of focus on the one aspect of the game.”

A month ago, Ohtani’s walk-off grand slam to reach the 40/40 milestone provided the heroics the Dodgers envisioned when they inked him to a 10-year, $700 million deal last offseason. Only five big leaguers had ever notched a 40/40 season before; none got there faster than Ohtani.

Last year, Ronald Acuña Jr. made history with 41 homers and 73 stolen bases. In 2006, Alfonso Soriano launched 46 homers and stole 41 bags. Álex Rodríguez did basically the inverse in 1998, when he had 42 homers and 46 steals.

But no one had ever recorded 45 homers and 45 steals in a season, let alone 50/50.

Ohtani has already stolen more than twice as many bases as any player who has hit 50 homers in a season. He hit the road on Sept. 13 with 47 homers and 48 steals. He was unable to add to those tallies in Atlanta.

Miami was not so fortunate. After reaching 50/50 on Thursday, Ohtani expressed both excitement and relief that the chase was done.

“There’s pressure going in to try to get 50/50,” Jack Flaherty, who started Thursday’s game, told reporters afterward. “Everybody knows it and everybody’s here to watch him. What he’s able to do day in, day out, with all eyes on him to watch him, is nothing short of sensational.”

Acuña is the only player other than Ohtani to hit at least 30 homers in the same season in which he stole 50 bases. Last season’s rule changes limiting pitcher disengagements and widening the bases gave them a leg up for their record-setting offensive achievements, but it’s not like everyone’s been running wild since. Last year, only three players stole 50 bases. This year, Elly De La Cruz is the only player other than Ohtani who has reached the mark so far.

Both are physical anomalies.

Ohtani and De La Cruz are the only two players since the Astros’ Brian Hunter in 1997 to steal 50 bases in a season while standing 6-foot-4 or taller. Ohtani and Jose Canseco are the only 6-4 hitters in MLB history with a 40/40 season to their names. No player as tall as Ohtani and who weighs as much as the Dodger slugger had ever stolen 45 bases in a season.

Even more impressive, he is not doing it recklessly.

Ohtani has been caught stealing only four times this year and has the second-highest success rate of any player with at least 30 steals this season — he trails only Maikel Garcia, who is 15 steals behind him. Ohtani’s 92.7% success rate is also the highest of any of the 40/40 seasons in MLB history. He has not been caught since July 22, and he has run more as the season has progressed.

In the second half alone, Ohtani has 28 steals and has only been caught once in 56 games. Prior to this year, he had never stolen more than 26 bases in an entire season.

“I know that he’s taken very good care of his legs to be able to do that and to be that dynamic player,” Roberts said. “He’s doing his homework on opposing pitchers, really working hard on that, and he’s getting great jumps. And I think even now you start to see, he’s a much better base stealer, he’s very efficient. Whereas early on in the season, and even years when we played against him, he was tentative, his stolen base percentage wasn’t great.”

Ohtani has been preparing for this from the moment he put on a Dodgers uniform.

For the first time, he could dedicate all his effort into being the most complete offensive force possible. Stealing more bases was an obvious starting point, no longer needing to conserve his energy to pitch every week. He let Dodgers head strength coach Travis Smith know that was a goal of his the moment they met. Immediately this spring, they got to work on quickness drills, including resistance work, and on setup and positioning on the basepaths.

Prior to this year, Paul Molitor held the top stolen base mark for a primary DH in a single season with 31. Ohtani stole his 32nd base on Aug. 5, with nearly two months still to play.

While Ohtani’s overall sprint speed is marginally better than it was last season and ranks in MLB’s 73rd percentile — good, but not quite elite — where Ohtani has taken important strides is in his aggression, first step and short bursts. From five feet out to 90, Ohtani ranks in the 91st percentile or better in every five-foot increment. Last year, he was in the 87th percentile or worse.

Stealing this efficiently, though, required more than physical ability. He needed a certain feel and understanding for the right opportunities. Ohtani and first-base coach Clayton McCullough have exchanged thoughts and notes about patterns and pitcher tendencies all year.

“Going into each series, he’s trying to get prepared for who might come in when he’s up,” McCullough said. “He’s very smart, has a terrific recall.”

This is the latest iteration of a superstar who, yet again, has found another stunning way to reach unparalleled heights.

In 2021, he was the first player ever to be selected to an All-Star Game as both a pitcher and position player. That year, his first full season as both a hitter and pitcher since undergoing Tommy John surgery at the end of his rookie year, he became the first player ever to hit more than 30 homers while starting 15 games on the mound. The comparisons to Babe Ruth were obvious, but even Ruth’s best offensive years came after he had stopped pitching.

This had the makings of something different altogether. The following season built on that premise.

In 2022, Ohtani became one of the best pitchers in the sport, finishing fourth in Cy Young voting. Aaron Judge’s 62-homer season was the only thing that stood in the way of another MVP for the Angels superstar, who set career highs on the mound with 15 wins and a 2.33 ERA and became the only player ever to win 10 games as a pitcher and hit 30 homers at the plate in the same season. He reached both marks again last year before his body finally caved.

After leading Team Japan to victory and earning tournament MVP honors in the WBC, Ohtani went on to hit over .300 for the first time in his major-league career. He became the first ever unanimous two-time MVP, winning the award despite missing most of the final month of the year due to a torn UCL and a strained oblique.

This year, his stolen bases have set his 2024 season apart. But his ability to make history again, in his first season following another elbow reconstruction, is also a testament to his strength.

Of his 51 home runs, 34 have traveled more than 400 feet, including two of his three shots in Thursday’s record-setting performance. Nine have gone at least 450. Seven have been hit at least 115 mph off the bat. Each of those numbers leads the majors.

On Thursday, Ohtani tied Shawn Green’s franchise record home record with his 49th home run of the year in the sixth inning on a 438-foot blast, then set the franchise record with his 50th of the year an inning later on an opposite-field shot off Mike Baumann. A towering 440-foot mammoth home run off position player Vidal Bruján capped off his day and capped his unbelievable performance with home runs in each of his final three at-bats.

“I’m really just a fan watching it just like y’all are,” Mookie Betts, who hits behind Ohtani in the lineup, told reporters afterward. “I just happen to have the closest seat.”

The nine hardest-hit balls by a Dodgers player in the Statcast era (dating back to 2015) all came off the bat of Ohtani this year. It provides him a margin for error that other hitters lack. He often finds the barrel, but when he doesn’t, he can still find the bleachers. His ability to impact a baseball is unlike anything Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates has ever seen.

“Not in person, not as a coach,” Bates said. “I don’t know how it was when someone was coaching Barry Bonds or someone like that.”

Earlier this month, when Ohtani tied his career high with his 46th home run of the season, the 450-foot blast jumped off his bat at 116.7 mph and traveled so far it became hard to track as it snuck inside the right-field foul pole at Dodger Stadium. It mesmerized his teammates, including Clayton Kershaw, who has watched 17 years worth of games at the venue.

“Kersh has been here almost double the amount I have, and even he said he’d never seen a ball go to that spot in the stadium,” Max Muncy said. “That was pretty cool to watch from the dugout. It was a great view. We were just curious what was taking so long to look at the replay. Maybe the guys in New York were admiring it as much as we were.”

Ohtani’s absurd feats on a baseball field have helped quell a turbulent start to the year. A season that began infamously, embroiled in a gambling investigation that ended with his longtime friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara admitting to stealing millions of dollars from him and pleading guilty to bank and tax fraud charges, will end historically.

More history should soon be ahead. No player prior to this year has ever won MVP while exclusively serving as a DH. That is likely to change in the coming months, after Ohtani gets his first chance to demonstrate what he can do on MLB’s biggest stage.

Unfortunately for him, October baseball won’t take place at loanDepot park.

“I’ve had perhaps the most memorable moments here in my career,” Ohtani said through his interpreter Thursday. “This stadium has become one of my favorite stadiums.”

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.

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