A quick scan of Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani’s Baseball-Reference page reveals gobs of bold ink, which is the site’s identifier that a player leads the league in a specific category. Entering Thursday, the runaway favorite for American League MVP leads the AL in the following hitting categories: home runs (42), triples (seven), walks (75), OPS (1.072), OPS+ (186), total bases (297) and intentional walks (16). He also owns a 3.17 ERA with 165 strikeouts in 22 starts, allowing an MLB-best 5.9 hits per nine innings.
As eye-popping as all that is, that page, of course, does not tell the full story of just how transcendent a season Ohtani is having. No one stat could bear such a responsibility, but here’s one that goes a long way in painting a more complete picture.
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Of Ohtani’s 42 big flies this season, 21 of them were hit high and far enough that they would have cleared the fences in all 30 MLB ballparks. That’s the most “no doubters” of any player this season, according to Statcast, topping Braves first baseman Matt Olson’s 19.
Anybody who’s watched Ohtani swing a bat (and by now, who hasn’t?) knows that he rarely goes up to the plate just trying to make contact. He swings hard, and all that effort typically shows up in the results. The best example of this was his homer against the Diamondbacks on June 30, which stands as the longest home run in the league this season at a whopping 493 feet.
4️⃣9️⃣3️⃣ feet for No. 30!
— MLB (@MLB) July 1, 2023
Shohei Ohtani is UNREAL! pic.twitter.com/W7TxBembrj
With 40 games remaining, Ohtani is six home runs shy of breaking the franchise record for most in a season. He won’t need those six to clear all 30 ballpark dimensions for them to count—but, given what he’s already done this year, it’s a safe bet that he will anyway.
