DENVER – A pitcher rehabbing from Tommy John surgery just had one of the best offensive seasons in baseball history.
Shohei Ohtani finished his first regular season as a full-time DH and Dodger by going 1 for 4 with a stolen base as the Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies 2-1 Sunday afternoon, ending the season with their 98th victory.
The one-hit day left him four points short of Luis Arraez in the National League batting title race. Arraez was 1 for 3 and finished at .314 to Ohtani’s career-high .310.
Ohtani did lead the National League in home runs (54) and RBIs (130) as well as runs scored (134) and the trifecta of on-base percentage (.389), slugging percentage (.646) and OPS (1.036).
His 411 total bases were tied for the fifth-most in MLB since 1940, the most since Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez and Barry Bonds in 2001 and the most in Dodgers franchise history. His 54 home runs and 99 extra-base hits are also franchise records.
All this, of course, while having baseball’s first 50-50 season. He is the presumptive NL MVP. It will be his third MVP in seven seasons and make him only the second player in history to win the award in each league (Frank Robinson being the other).
He finished his first season as a Dodger with a 12-game hitting streak during which Ohtani went 29 for 53, raising his batting average 22 points (from .288).
After pummeling Rockies pitching for 24 runs on 33 hits in the first two games of the series, the Dodgers started their bye week early, The went down meekly against Rockies starter Ryan Feltner, managing just two hits (both singles by Teoscar Hernandez) in his six-plus innings.
In a scenario Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game the team was “considering” for a postseason game, Anthony Banda handled the first inning as an ‘opener’ before giving way to Landon Knack.
Knack gave up a monster home run to Sam Hilliard in the second inning – a 476-foot drive into the upper reaches of Coors Field – and no more in four innings.
That stood as the only run of the day until Chris Taylor shot an opposite-field solo home run over the scoreboard in right field to tie the game in the eighth inning. It was Taylor’s first home run since July 7 but he has hit .303 (20 for 66) since the All-Star break.
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Singles by Austin Barnes and Ohtani put runners on with one out. A double steal gave Ohtani his 59th steal of the season and 36th in a row without being caught. A balk brought in the go-ahead run.
Ohtani finished with 25 home runs and 36 stolen bases after the All-Star break, leading the majors in both categories. Only one other player (since the All-Star Game started in 1933) led the majors in home runs and steals after the All-Star break – Willie Mays did it in 1955.