Shohei Ohtani outdid himself during the Los Angeles Angels 4-2 over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night.
In fact, the top contender for his second AL MVP award accomplished something that hasn’t been done on an MLB diamond in 133 years.
Ohtani finished the win 3-for-3 with two home runs, two RBIs, two runs scored and one walk, while allowing just one run on four hits and two walks against 10 strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings pitched. Ohtani has a five-game hitting streak and has recorded three consecutive quality starts and back-to-back outings with double-digit punchouts.
The two-time All-Star leads MLB in wins above replacement (WAR) at 6.1, home runs (28), RBIs (64), slugging percentage (.654), OPS (1.039) and total bases (200) among other categories. On the mound, Ohtani is 7-3 with a 3.02 ERA and 1.03 WHIP, has 127 strikeouts over 95 1/3 innings pitched, leads MLB in hits per nine innings allowed (5.6) and paces the AL in strikeouts per nine innings (11.9).
Baseball experts are running out of adjectives and superlatives to describe how amazing the 28-year-old is, and his projected salary for his next contract keeps growing. At this point, he’s bound to earn $500 million after he hits free agency and with each incredible dual performance like Tuesday’s, that figure seems more likely to be $600 million or more.
Though the Angels still trail the first-place Texas Rangers (48-31) by 5 games in the AL West, their 44-37 mark at the exact halfway point of the 2023 campaign has them currently holding onto the final wild-card spot in the junior circuit.
Los Angeles hasn’t made an MLB postseason since Ohtani debuted in 2018 and hasn’t been in the tournament at all since 2014, which was Mike Trout’s third full season in the bigs.
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