Tag: Shohei Ohtani

Shohei-the-Kid Puts on a Really Big Show

As the 2025 World Series gets ready to begin this Friday, I would like to reflect on Shohei Ohtani’s incredible performance for the L.A. Dodgers in the pennant-clinching game on Friday night.

Quite simply it was the greatest performance by a single player ever in an MLB game. Period.

You can look it up.

The only other pitcher ever to hit three home runs in a game he was pitching occurred in May 1942. The pitcher was Jim Tobin of the Boston Red Sox. He pitched nine innings, allowed three runs and was credited with the win. He did not strike out a batter. It was a fabulous performance, but it occurred in a meaningless game in May during a time when baseball’s talent pool was being diluted by World War II.

Ohtani only pitched six innings, but they were scoreless innings in which he struck out a whopping ten Brewers. Ohtani was also perfect at the plate, 3 home runs and one base on balls. And Ohtani’s performance came in a crucial pennant-clinching game. There have been many brilliantly pitched games in crucial games but never by a pitcher who hit three home runs.

Ohtani is also the only player ever to hit three home runs in a pennant-clinching game or playoff-clinching game. As for the World Series, Babe Ruth did it twice, in game four 1926 and game four 1928. “Mr. October” Reggie Jackson performed his dramatic feat in game six 1977. But Ruth and Jackson’s historic slugging was accomplished while leisurely patrolling the pastoral confines of right field.

For Ohtani it was quite a show that along with millions of baseball fans I was thrilled to watch.

Ohtani Keeps Making History

On Thursday night Shohei Ohtani had an historic performance on the mound and at the plate by pitching a shutout and hitting two home runs on the same day.

My friend Al Zevin, who is an amateur baseball historian, did some research and discovered that the remarkable feat occurred only four other times in modern baseball history.

2023 Shohei Ohtani vs. Detroit

1971 Sonny Siebert vs. Boston

1971 Rick Wise vs. Cincinnati

1962 Pedro Ramos vs. Baltimore

1961 Milt Pappas vs. Minnesota

As a big Ohtani fan, I then boastfully claimed to Al that Ohtani has probably hit more home runs this year than those four pitchers combined for their entire careers.

I did some research and well…I was wrong.

Here’s what I found. All four pitchers, Siebert, Wise, Ramos and Pappas are what we might have called good hitting pitchers in that they did hit an occasional home run. So, it was not merely a fluke that they hit two home runs in a game that they pitched a shutout. As a matter of fact, both Sonny Siebert and Rick Wise each hit 6 home runs in the 1971 season. Here’s how the career home runs stack up for these four pitchers.

Sonny Siebert: 12 years, 18 home runs

Rick Wise: 18 years, 15 home runs

Pedro Ramos: 15 years, 15 home runs

Milt Pappas: 17 years, 20 home runs

So, their total career home runs of 68 are more than twice that of Ohtani’s current number 38.

This of course is a very arbitrary comparison but insightful none the less. (And aren’t these statistical comparison’s fun and part of the charm of baseball)? What we see here is that pitchers really could hit back when they were allowed to. The four mentioned here could all be described as having occasional power though their lifetime batting averages were dreadful. Wise .195, Siebert .173, Ramos .155, and Pappas .123. But yes, they had occasional power and averaged about 5 home runs per season. They all had solid career pitching stats with only Ramos clocking in with a below .500 won-loss record and plus 4.00 ERA. They may even have had more hitting success if there was a DH back when they pitched, though Rick Wise pitched half his career in the DH era.

One other note: these four pitchers also accomplished the two-home run-shutout feat in the same game. Ohtani needed a double-header, pitching the shutout in the first game and blasting two homers in the second.

None of this though can in any way diminish from Ohtani’s incredible accomplishments. Right now, he leads both leagues in home runs, he’s second in RBI’s, third in strikeouts and two off the pace in wins. He is having a truly remarkable season and should continue making history.

References: Al Zevin, Jeff Robinson, ESPN, Baseball-reference.com