On Tuesday night, Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani added to his long list of incredible accomplishments. In the 7th inning of the Angels game against their division rival, the Oakland Athletics, Ohtani blasted his 25th home run of the year. In doing so, he surpassed Ichiro Suzuki for 2nd on the all-time list for home runs among Japanese born players with 118. Only Hideki Matsui has more during his major league career with 175.
But what makes Ohtani truly special, as everyone knows, is that he is also one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Well, he happened to dealing on the mound Tuesday as well. Ohtani tossed six shutout innings as the Angels would go on to beat the A’s, 5-1.
Shohei Ohtani became the first player in American League history since 1972 to toss six shutout innings in the same game that they hit a home run. The last player to do that was Dave McNally for the Baltimore Orioles on August 9, 1972, exactly 50 years ago Tuesday.
Of course, that was also the last year before the DH was introduced to the American League. But that does not take away from Ohtani’s accomplishment.
He won the 2021 AL MVP award and is fighting to win it yet again.
As a hitter, Ohtani is batting .255 with 25 home runs and 66 RBI’s. On the hill, the Angels starter improved to 10-7 with a 2.68 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and a ridiculous 157 strikeouts in just 111 innings. He is currently second in the AL MVP race behind only Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge.
The fact that the Angels are 15 games under .500 are certainly hurting his chances of going back-to-back. But that probably should be another feather in his cap that despite the lack of production around him, he is still the most dominant force in baseball.