Shohei Ohtani achieved the never-before-seen 50-50 season on Sept. 19, with 50 home runs and 50 steals in the same season. Then he reached the 51-51 club in the same game while helping his team clinch the first playoff berth of his career.
But that wasn’t the end of his history-making this season.
On Friday, Ohtani hit an RBI single, then stole his 57th base of the season in the second inning against the Colorado Rockies, pushing his foray into the record books to 53-57 and breaking Ichiro Suzuki’s record for single-season stolen base total by a Japanese-born player.
Four innings later, Ohtani demolished his 54th home run of the season, putting him one long ball short of a 55-55 season.
That homer also made Ohtani 12 for his past 13 with runners in scoring position, which doesn’t sound possible.
With the NL West title and a wild-card bye in hand after a series win over the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers can take a leisurely approach to their final series of the season. However, with the offense-friendly confines of Coors Field to play in, it would be hard to blame Ohtani for doing whatever he can to put another exclamation point on one of the best seasons ever.
Could Shohei Ohtani win the triple crown?
In addition to a 50-50 season, Ohtani has an outside chance at a triple crown.
He has the NL home run title sewn up with 54 homers. The next closest hitter, Marcell Ozuna, is at 39. The RBI crown is basically in hand, too, with Ohtani having 127, 16 more than Willy Adames.
That leaves batting average, and Ohtani is a lot closer to first place than he was a week ago. After Sept. 18, he was hitting .287, well behind leader Luiz Arraez at .320. Then Ohtani somehow reached another level, going 20-for-29 over his next seven games, along with five doubles, five homers, 16 RBI, 12 runs and seven stolen bases.
Ohtani’s batting average sat at .305 entering the Colorado series, with only Arraez (.312) and Ozuna (.310) ahead of him. With him finishing the regular season at Coors Field, anything seems possible.
Ohtani reached 50-50 in spectacular fashion
Ohtani didn’t just achieve 50-50 on Sept. 19, he burst through the walls of the newfound club like the Kool-Aid Man with one of the best offensive games in MLB history. His total line: 6-for-6, three homers, two stolen bases, two doubles, four runs and 10 RBI.
It was the first three-homer, two-steal game and the 16th 10-RBI game in MLB history. If there are any better single-game performances, they featured four homers.
The final piece of the 50-50 puzzle came in the seventh inning of that game against the Miami Marlins, off reliever Mike Baumann.
Ohtani had reached the half-century mark in steals early in the first inning, stealing third after opening the game with a double, then added his 51st steal in the second inning after an RBI single. His lone out of the game came on his next at-bat in the third, when his ball fell just short of a homer and he was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.
Had the ball gone further, it would have been a four-homer game. Had Ohtani been a bit faster, it would have been a cycle.
Ohtani’s next three at-bats all resulted in homers, with the exclamation point arriving in the ninth inning against position-player pitcher Vidal Brujan.
Shohei Ohtani’s history-making goes beyond 50-50
In addition to creating the 50-50 club, Ohtani has done more than enough to make his first season with the Dodgers worth remembering.
As far as reaching certain numbers in home runs and stolen bases goes, Ohtani has journeyed deep into uncharted territory. In August, he became the sixth player to ever reach 40-40 — joining Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodríguez, Alfonso Soriano and Ronald Acuña Jr. — and he did so in record time. The earliest any of those players had reached both thresholds was Soriano on Sept. 16, 2006.
And Ohtani’s 40th homer was a special one: a walk-off grand slam.
Rodriguez previously held the record for most in both categories, with 42 homers and 46 stolen bases in 1998. Ohtani matched that 42-42 season on his bobblehead night on Aug. 28 and surpassed it two days later on Aug. 30.
Ohtani’s home run count surpasses his previous career high of 46 set in 2021, his first MVP year, and he has shattered his previous best in steals (26, also in 2021). He currently leads the NL in homers and ranks behind only Elly De La Cruz in steals.
The Sept. 19 game was Ohtani’s 13th game of the season with at least one homer and one steal, which tied him with Rickey Henderson in 1986 for the most in MLB history, according to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya. Ohtani took sole possession of the record a day later, when he hit home run No. 52 and stole base No. 52. Friday was his 15th, extending his record.
Ohtani’s 50th homer also broke the Dodgers’ single season homer record, previously held by Shawn Green with 49 in 2001. He reached 400 total bases this season on Thursday as well, making him the first player since 2001 to reach the threshold.
And, of course, Ohtani set records for both size of contract ($700 million) and deferred contract money ($680 million) when he signed with the Dodgers before this season.
Ohtani has built his career on being unprecedented. Even in a season in which he isn’t able to pitch, having undergone UCL surgery at the end of 2023, he is still doing things MLB has never seen.
