Before the demolition, Shohei Ohtani had to show discipline.
Before the Dodgers slugger hit the biggest home run of his Major League Baseball career, he first had to land a pitch that just missed the plate.
If you want a glimpse of what has made Ohtani the most dangerous hitter in the Majors over the past three weeks — a 17-game stretch in which the two-time Most Valuable Player has hit an MLB-best .424 with six home runs, 11 RBIs and 15 extra-base hits — look no further than his ninth-inning at-bat against Washington Nationals reliever Matt Barnes on Tuesday night.
With the Dodgers ahead by two runs, Barnes tried to bait Ohtani with a fastball on the first pitch that dove off the inside corner of the plate. It wasn’t a great location as the area was missing by several inches. But it wasn’t an automatic decision either, not for a hitter who sees fastballs at one of the lowest rates in the league and isn’t afraid of an ambush on the first pitch.
This time, however, Ohtani didn’t bite. He shrank back into the box when the heater missed the zone, took a quick step out to readjust his helmet, then dug back in with a 1-and-0 count at his side.
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As he has done more and more of late, Ohtani stuck to his approach and waited for a more tantalizing error somewhere in the heart of the record.
On the very next pitch, Barnes served one, hanging a center-cut splitter that Ohtani destroyed with a thudding, thunderous upper-cut swing – sending a scorching line drive into the second deck of Nationals Park to keep the score in the Dodgers to limit. 4-1 victory.
“It looks like a cruise missile,” said teammate James Outman. “That was absurd.”
“There are some guys,” manager Dave Roberts added, “who can hit a ball like that.”
The data agreed. According to MLB’s Statcast system, Ohtani’s home run had an exit velocity of 120 mph (198.7 km/h) — the heaviest of this young MLB season, of Ohtani’s seven-year MLB career and of any Dodgers hitter since the league started limiting exit velocities at hold.
Although the blast had a low trajectory with topspin limiting the distance it could travel, the ball still sailed 450 feet and crashed into a pocket of empty seats deep in the right-field bleachers.
“If he hits that with backspin,” said third baseman Max Muncy, “he’s definitely out of the stadium.”
Such physical gifts have been evident in Ohtani for years, as the 6-foot-2, linebacker-sized superstar has learned to fine-tune his mechanics and maximize the power of his swing.
Ohtani has ranked in the top 10 in the Majors in average exit velocity every season since 2021. His 50 batted balls at 90 miles per hour or more this season – Statcasts’ threshold for “hard hit” contact – leads all major league hitters. And as a result, Ohtani entered Wednesday’s game with the best batting average (.364), slugging percentage (.677) and OPS (1.107) in the MLB.
“It’s lightning in that bat,” Roberts said. “Every time he swings and makes contact, he can change the game.”
However, hammering the ball is only half the battle for Ohtani. Like any hitter, he thrives when he’s ahead in the count, limiting his chases and attack throws into what Roberts likes to call his players’ “nitro zone” — which for Ohtani is just about anything in the strike zone, or down and go inside.
There’s a reason why his hardest exit speeds come when he’s ahead in the count. According to MLB’s Baseball Savant database, Ohtani has an average exit velocity of over 100 mph when the count is 1-and-1, 2-and-1, 3-and-1, or 2-and-0; and in all other situations less than 160 km/h.
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There’s also a reason why, on the rare occasions when Ohtani has struggled this season — like his .242 average through the first eight games, or his .130 mark with runners in scoring position — it’s been his approach where Robert’s space for saw. improvement.
The manager noticed that Ohtani at times seemed to expand his strike zone too much, becoming too aggressive on pitches with which he could do little damage.
Last week, Roberts decided to approach Ohtani directly with the observation, pulling him aside “just like any other player,” Roberts said, to make him aware of what I think he could do better.
Ohtani’s approach with runners in scoring position was the specific topic of their conversation.
“The zone I’m swinging to is a little bit bigger with runners in scoring position,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “I’m pretty good at it with no one on base. So it just expands the zone. And yes, we talked about it with Doc.”
However, the idea can be applied to all of Ohtani’s at-bats.
“If he’s even more disciplined in the offensive zone,” Roberts said, “that just makes him more scary.”
Case in point: While Ohtani’s batting average, slugging percentage and home run numbers have improved in recent weeks, so has his walk-to-strikeout ratio, allowing 10 free passes against just 12 punchouts in 17 games since April 3. .
More evidence: the ever-changing ways teams have tried to attack — or rather, neutralize — Ohtani offensively.
Roberts addressed that point Tuesday, reflecting on the years he and his superstar spent sitting in opposite dugouts.
Early in Ohtani’s career, when he faced the Angels annually, Roberts said the Dodgers’ pitchers focused on one weakness in Ohtani’s approach and attacked him in the zone while not trying to get him to chase down.
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But in recent years, Ohtani has adapted, Roberts said. learning to “close that window” and make elevated pitches another no-no when he steps up to the plate.
“You could try to harass him for a while,” Roberts said. ‘But if you try that, there are a lot of risks involved. If you want to move up, you have to have a lot of self-confidence.”
That’s exactly what Barnes, the Nationals reliever, did Tuesday night as he tried to get back into the count.
However, Ohtani was ready as always and took advantage of his first-pitch discipline with another destructive performance.
“[He’s] controlling the strike zone,” Roberts said. “If he does that, it’s hard to get him out.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
