2024-08-24 17:35:02
Back in spring training, during Shohei Ohtani’s early days with his new club, people around Dodgers camp couldn’t help but dream of what the two-way star’s debut season with the team could look like.
Coming off his second most valuable player award and a record $700-million contract with the Dodgers in the offseason, Ohtani already was viewed as the best player in baseball. And after undergoing Tommy John surgery at the end of last year, he entered this season focused solely on being a designated hitter.
The hope at the time was that Ohtani’s offense wouldn’t be burdened by his elbow surgery and rehab. That his production could be enhanced by a season of only hitting. That he somehow could elevate his game further and pursue a new set of historic targets that previously had been beyond his reach.
Six months later, Ohtani surpassed even the loftiest of those expectations, becoming just the sixth player in history to produce a 40-home run, 40-stolen base season, and the first to eclipse both thresholds before the start of September.
Ohtani completed the first 40-40 season in franchise history in the most dramatic fashion Friday night, hitting a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Dodgers to a 7-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays before a crowd of 45,556 in Chavez Ravine.
Ohtani’s 40th homer of the season and first walk-off shot of his seven-year career was prefaced by his 40th stolen base, which he swiped in the fourth inning without a throw after leading off with an infield single.
“I mean, 40-40 in the same game, walk-off grand slam … it’s just storybook,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I always say that you can’t script a game, but man, if there was a script, that couldn’t have been written any better. Shohei just never ceases to amaze.”
Shohei Ohtani hits a walk-off grand slam for the Dodgers against the Rays to join the 40-40 club.
The score was 3-3 when Will Smith was hit by a Manuel Rodriguez pitch to open the ninth. Tommy Edman lined a single to center field, and both runners advanced on Miguel Rojas’ sacrifice bunt.
Gavin Lux, with the infield in, grounded sharply to Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe, who made a diving stop to his left and threw to first for the second out, the runners holding.
Roberts sent the left-handed-hitting Max Muncy to bat for Kiké Hernández, whose three-run homer had tied the score in the fifth. Rays manager Kevin Cash countered with left-hander Colin Poche, who walked Muncy to load the bases.
As Ohtani approached the batter’s box, he wasn’t thinking home run.
“A walk would have been fine,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “I was just trying to get on base.”
Shohei Ohtani hits a grand slam in the ninth inning to send the Dodgers to a 7-3 win over the Rays on Friday night.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Yeah, right. Roberts said he could sense Ohtani was about to do something dramatic, and Ohtani didn’t disappoint, crushing a first-pitch slider 389 feet to right-center field, a towering drive that just cleared the glove of leaping center fielder Jose Siri. The ball bounced onto the field, and Siri threw it back into the bleachers.
“It was really hard to tell from my perspective,” Ohtani said, when asked if he had gotten enough of it. “I didn’t know if the ball had hit the fence or was caught, but I saw the umpire raise his hand up, and that was the moment I knew it went out.”
Ohtani’s teammates mobbed him at home plate, as the Dodgers won for the 11th time in 14 games and maintained their National League West leads of four games over Arizona and 4½ games over San Diego. When Ohtani came out for a curtain call, he was doused with a bucket of ice water.
“One of my top memorable moments,” Ohtani said, when asked where this game ranked in his career, “and I hope that I can do more and make more memorable moments.”
A 40-40 season has long been one of baseball’s most exclusive statistical feats.
It was 1988 when Jose Canseco of the Oakland Athletics recorded the first 40-40 season. Over the next two decades, Barry Bonds (1996), Alex Rodriguez (1998) and Alfonso Soriano (2006) joined him.
Last year, Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Atlanta Braves ended a 17-year drought of 40-40 seasons in emphatic style, swiping 73 bags to capture unanimous National League MVP honors.
Ohtani appears to be on a similar path, entering the final stretch as the overwhelming favorite for NL MVP and on the verge of more history. He looks likely to have the first 45-45 season. If he heats up over the final month, 50-50 might not be out of the question.
“It is,” Roberts said, when asked if 50-50 is within reach. “That’s never been done, right? With this guy and over a month of baseball left, I think anything’s possible.”
Is Ohtani gunning for 50-50?
“The most important thing is to be able to contribute to winning the game, and obviously the closer I get to 50-50, the more I’m contributing to the team winning,” he said. “If that’s how it is, I’m happy for that.”
While Ohtani surpassed 40 home runs in both his 2021 and 2023 MVP seasons with the Angels, he never had stolen more than 26 bases as a big leaguer, always practicing some level of restraint on the basepaths to conserve energy and protect his body for his pitching.
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1. Shohei Ohtani smiles as he approaches home plate after hitting a walk-off grand slam against the Rays at Dodger Stadium on Friday night. 2. Shohei Ohtani celebrates with teammates after his walk-off grand slam. 3. Shohei Ohtani celebrates with manager Dave Roberts after his grand slam. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
But Ohtani ranks second in the majors in stolen bases behind Cincinnati Reds speedster Elly De La Cruz, who has 60, and he has been caught only four times.
“I know 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, he’s getting great jumps, and he’s a much better base stealer, very efficient.
“Whereas early in the season, and even years when we played against him, he was tentative, and his stolen-base percentage wasn’t great, he’s now an elite base stealer with a high success rate.”
Several other Dodgers had a hand in Friday night’s win, starting with Hernández, who followed Edman’s bloop single and Lux’s one-out walk in the fifth with a tying three-run homer to left-center, his eighth of the season.
Right-hander Bobby Miller, who missed two months because of an inflamed shoulder and was demoted to triple A in July, delivered his best start since his season debut in late March, giving up three runs and seven hits — two of them home runs — in six innings, striking out nine and walking one.
Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting a walk-off grand slam in the Dodgers’ 7-3 win over the Rays at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Miller maintained his fastball velocity throughout, averaging 97.8 mph with his four-seamer, and was able to throw his curveball and changeup for strikes. He threw 68 of 96 pitches for strikes, induced 18 swinging strikes and closed his outing by striking out the side — all with curveballs — in the sixth.
Reliever Ryan Brasier retired the side in order in the seventh, Evan Phillips pitched around Lowe’s one-out double in a scoreless eighth, and Michael Kopech struck out two of three in a scoreless ninth, Josh Lowe with a 100-mph fastball and Siri with a 101-mph fastball.
Kopech increased his scoreless streak to 10⅓ innings in 10 games since the Dodgers acquired the right-hander from the Chicago White Sox on July 29, and he’s given up only one hit to 33 batters, with 15 strikeouts and one walk.
But in the end, it was Sho who stole the show.
“I think that he wants to be the greatest player to ever play this game,” Roberts said of Ohtani, “and when you start doing things like this, you’re certainly staking your claim.”
