Major League Baseball

Inside Shohei Ohtani's latest march toward history: 'He's obsessed with being great'

Published Jun. 26, 2024 11:48 a.m. ET

If the thunderous crack of the bat doesn't give it away, Shohei Ohtani's mannerisms divulge the inevitable.

After he taps his toe, coils and releases his forceful swing through the zone, the National League home run leader lets it be known when he fully connects on a drive and is sending a souvenir into the stands by taking a series of small steps toward first base as he fixates his gaze on the ball's path and flips his bat to the side.

As common as the occurrence is becoming, his home runs never cease to amaze.

The force he can generate on a swing stupefies even those who regularly see it up close. The distance he can send a baseball bewilders his coaches and teammates.

"I don't know what more we can really say about him," Freddie Freeman said Tuesday after Ohtani's seventh home run in nine games. "Sometimes you just have to step back and appreciate a player like this."

Ohtani, the NL OPS and WAR leader at the halfway mark, is in the midst of his best stretch of baseball as a Dodger. He tied a franchise record on Tuesday by recording at least one RBI in nine straight games. Often, he's knocking himself in.

He is the only player in the Statcast era (since 2015) who has hit a ball at least 450 feet multiple times at Dodger Stadium, and he has now done it four times, including in consecutive games this past weekend in his first action against his former team. Nine of his past 10 homers have traveled at least 400 feet.

"I feel everyone's reaction is always, like, ‘Wow,' every time, in the dugout or in the cage," starter Tyler Glasnow said. "But, yeah, I think it's very entertaining for us as well."

On Friday against the Angels, Ohtani launched a 455-foot home run off lefty Matt Moore. One day later, he sent a home run four feet farther against right-hander Zach Plesac. It was Ohtani's third straight game with a home run and his major league-leading sixth homer of at least 450 feet this season.

As Ohtani rounded the bases, his manager turned around from the top step of the home dugout, crossed his arms and incredulously whispered the same phrase as Glasnow — "wow" — before chuckling.

The surge from Ohtani couldn't come at a better time.

The Dodgers lost their catalyst atop the lineup when Mookie Betts fractured his hand on June 16. In the eight games since Ohtani stepped into the leadoff spot, he's hitting .419 with five homers, three doubles, eight walks (one intentional) and 14 RBIs. The Dodgers are 6-2 over that stretch.

"When he's staying to the big part of the field and getting the ball up in the hitting zone, there's no one even close to as good as he is," manager Dave Roberts said.

Ohtani has been so good as a leadoff hitter over the past week that Roberts acknowledged the lineup construction will at least warrant a conversation once Betts returns, but the Dodgers manager is also quick to point out that this stretch from Ohtani began before he bumped up a spot in the lineup. On the day Betts got injured, Ohtani homered twice from his usual No. 2 place in the lineup. He had also homered twice in the five games prior.

Given his tremendous bat speed (it's the fastest on the Dodgers) and bat-to-ball skills (he has the highest batting average in baseball), these types of hot streaks feel inevitable as long as Ohtani is healthy and staying in the zone.

"He got back into a good place where he was swinging at his strikes, the right strikes for him, and not chasing as much," Roberts said, "and then just naturally he went into that leadoff spot and continued to do what he's been doing."

Though the gambling saga at the start of the season impacted his sleeping, and back and hamstring issues played a role in thwarting a hot start to May, Ohtani still finds himself one of the National League's top MVP contenders at the halfway point. He has been named MVP twice as a designated hitter before, but he was also starring on the mound then. No player has ever won an MVP serving solely as DH, nor has a player ever won MVP in different leagues in consecutive years. Hall of Famer Frank Robinson is the only player to win the award in both leagues, but that historic feat wasn’t accomplished in back-to-back seasons.

The way Ohtani is hitting, he could become the first to do both.

Ohtani is not only back to his typical dominance at the plate; he is arguably better offensively than ever before as he leads all NL players in wins above replacement less than a year after undergoing his second major elbow procedure.

"He's obsessed with being great," Roberts said.

The Dodgers found that out soon after Ohtani signed the most lucrative deal in baseball history.

While rehabbing a two-way sensation was new to the Dodgers, they at least had the experience of helping Corey Seager back from Tommy John surgery five years ago. In addition, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who performed both of Ohtani's elbow procedures, is the Dodgers' head team physician, and Bernard Li, who was the Angels' head physical therapist when Ohtani was recovering from his first Tommy John surgery, is now the Dodgers' physical therapist and head of rehabilitation.

As the Dodgers went to work preparing a plan for Ohtani, members of the team's medical staff were thrilled to see how open Ohtani was to their feedback and how interested he was in learning more from the outset. The first day that Travis Smith saw Ohtani at Dodger Stadium, the reigning American League MVP began peppering the Dodgers strength and conditioning coach with questions about the way the Dodgers operate, the technology they use and how they might go about helping him steal more bases.

"That's been the good thing about Shohei, is he's been willing," Smith said. "Whatever it is that he believes is best for him, he's willing to do."

Ohtani slugs leadoff home run vs. Rockies

Ohtani made it a focus this year to be aggressive as a baserunner in an effort to find more ways to be productive when he's not pitching. He worked with Smith on his setup, positioning and quickness on the basepaths and developed a rapport with Clayton McCullough, the Dodgers first-base coach and the man whose head Ohtani now taps with his helmet every time he reaches base.

Ohtani already has 16 steals this season, the most on the team and 10 short of tying his career high set in 2021.

"We'll talk about maybe a certain pitcher before a series, and when he gets out there, his ability to recall that and remember, he's right on," McCullough told FOX Sports. "You know he's super intelligent. His level of engagement has been great."

None of the 12 MLB players with more steals than Ohtani this season have more than 14 home runs; Ohtani has 24. In addition to being more selective at the plate, he's also punishing pitches at a greater rate. No player in baseball has more hard-hit balls this season (those that have traveled at least 95 mph off the bat), and only 13 other qualified hitters boast a higher year-to-year jump in hard-hit rate than Ohtani.

"He's the best player ever, so we gave him twice as much money as anyone's ever made in this game, and he keeps proving why we did that," Walker Buehler said last month. "He's incredible."

The easiest explanation for his immediate success is that he gets to focus solely on hitting.

Roberts said there might be something to that, though Ohtani said it's too hard to say at this point. He still misses the "nervousness" he gets on start days, and it's clear he still has every intention of trying to get back on a mound again next season. Ohtani started throwing out to 60 feet late last month as part of his every-other-day program. He is now throwing out to 90 feet, though he won't be helping on a mound anytime soon.

Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates said that Ohtani's offensive routine hasn't changed much from when he pitched. He doesn't swing much more than he did prior, nor is he spending a lot more time looking at video.

"I think he's trying to keep his swing volume exactly the same, and that way when he starts pitching again, he doesn't have to make too many adjustments," Bates told FOX Sports.

Until then, this version of Ohtani might be a more well-rounded offensive force than any previous iteration.

The power is obvious, though it goes beyond that. He has the hardest-hit ball of his career (119.2 mph) and the longest homer of any player (476 feet) in the majors this year. Statcast recently unveiled a new metric called "blasts," which gives credit to a hitter who squares up a ball with a fast swing. Ohtani has the highest blast percentage in baseball and the most blasts in the majors.

"It's just a margin of error that he has that a lot of people don't have," Bates explained. "He doesn't have to be perfect when he hits the ball for it to go over the fence or go over someone's head or get through the infield."

Initially, the Dodgers didn't know how quickly that power would return.

Though Ohtani was highly productive in Cactus League play, there were some red flags regarding his ball flight coming off elbow surgery during the spring. He was hitting more high flies to left field and low liners to right rather than elevating the ball to right-center, the way he was capable of doing when he was in the right place mechanically. Some of that, Bates figured, was part of the normal process of working through a swing before a season.

There were also times this year when he would force too much at the plate, particularly when pitchers were trying to work around him or he was pressing with runners in scoring position. The Dodgers have emphasized the importance of strike-zone management to Ohtani, who appears to be heeding the advice.

Though he's not reaching base or slugging at quite the same rate he was during last year's MVP campaign, his OPS+ and contact rate are higher while his strikeout, whiff and chase rates are considerably lower. In addition, after hitting .190 in the abbreviated 2020 season, his batting average has climbed steadily every year: .257 in 2021, .273 in 2022, .304 in 2023 and now .320 in 2024 — the best mark in the majors.

"I think it's more about my posture and being able to see and have really good awareness of the strike zone," Ohtani said through team interpreter Will Ireton.

As much as Ohtani is rewarding the Dodgers, they are also returning the favor.

The Dodgers currently hold an 8.5-game lead in the NL West, a comfortable advantage even for a team dealing with significant absences. For the first time in his seven-year career, Ohtani is expected to play meaningful baseball in October.

It's hard not to have fun with that, regardless of any individual awards that come from it.

"It's something that I haven't really experienced in the past," Ohtani said through Ireton, "so I'm looking forward to that."

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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