close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • Dodgers star makes history with monster game
    news

    Dodgers star makes history with monster game

    Vaseline Posted on

    play

    Shohei Ohtani doesn’t let career-changing setbacks deter his production. He simply redistributes his immense talent and continues to make history.

    With the two-way big sidelined for the 2024 season due to a second elbow reconstruction surgery, Ohtani was a bat-only option in his first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. And with his right arm recovering, he simply expanded the idea of ​​what was possible with his legs.

    Ohtani became the first player in baseball history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season, breaking the boundaries of what a 6-foot-3, 205-pound hitter who can also pitch at a Cy Young level could accomplish.

    Ohtani reached that illustrious pinnacle on Thursday with a monster outing against the Miami Marlins, hitting two homers and stealing two bases in a 5-for-5 performance that yielded seven RBI. In doing so, he trails the other five members of the 40-40 club: Jose Canseco (1988), Barry Bonds (1996), Alex Rodriguez (1998), Alfonso Soriano (2006) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (2023).

    Certainly, liberalized stolen base rules that limit pickoff throws and provide larger bases to leave and arrive at play no small role in this phenomenon. In the first season under these rules, which were designed to artificially inject action into an increasingly stationary game, Acuña hit 41 home runs and stole 73 bases, making him not only the first 40-70 player, but also 40-50 and 40-60. Rodriguez held the previous record—46—for stolen bases in a 40-home run season.

    Yet, as is his wont, Ohtani found a path that no one had ever walked before.

    In the first year of a long-delayed 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers, Ohtani, the 30-year-old two-time American League MVP, is having perhaps the best offensive season of his career. He leads the NL in home runs, slugging (.607), OPS (.978) and adjusted OPS (177), the latter just shy of his career-best 184, which he set in his final season with the down-freeway Angels.

    Still, Ohtani has already surpassed the 44 home runs he hit last season and the 46 home runs he hit in 2021. And on top of that, he’s added 51 stolen bases, more than double the 20 he stole last year and nearly double his career-high 26 steals in 2021.

    This season has indeed been a referendum on Ohtani’s athleticism. While comparisons to Babe Ruth were natural given Ohtani’s ability to both hit and strike out batters, this historic campaign has further cemented his status as a one-of-a-kind athlete, one of the best in the world.

    As Ohtani puts this season together, he has quietly but diligently continued to rehab his right elbow. He remains on track to pitch in 2025, while the world waits to see if he can match his astonishing 11.4 strikeout rate per nine innings and 3.01 ERA in the wake of a second elbow surgery.

    Is 50-50-200 (strikeouts) in the cards? It seems almost physically impossible. Yet that’s a term we’ve learned not to associate with a player who keeps redefining what’s possible.

    The USA TODAY app brings you to the heart of the news quickly. Download for award-winning reporting, crosswords, audio stories, the e-newspaper and more.

    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like