From Shohei Ohtani, something special, something new.
The Dodgers' two-way dynamo cranked the 300th home run of his MLB career Tuesday, the latest milestone in a career that has constantly redefined the limits of baseballing dominance. Leading off the game for the Dodgers, Ohtani deposited the third pitch he saw, a 93.3-mph sinker from Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen, into the center-field seats.
It was another addition to his already astonishing highlight reel.
That said, nearly all of Ohtani's numerous achievements to this point have been measured and appreciated within the context of his sheer existence or his greatness over a single game or a full season. Ohtani is a fun fact machine in large part because nobody else in MLB hits and pitches. That he's doing both, at any level, is stunning. His mere existence has often felt improbable β a player whose skill set belongs more to folklore than modern baseball.
Ohtani's four MVP awards β more than anybody in MLB history except Barry Bonds, with more almost certainly to come β are a reminder of that greatness.
What happened Tuesday carried a slightly different lilt. Because while home run No. 300 was not particularly remarkable on its own, it represents the first major statistical milestone of Ohtani's already storied big-league career.
There is a minor but critical distinction between being the greatest of all time and being the best to ever do it. Ohtani is, undeniably, the latter. His performance in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS β 10 strikeouts over six scoreless innings on the mound, 3-for-3 with three home runs at the plate β was the sport's ultimate peak. Nobody had ever been that overwhelmingly good at this thing we call baseball.
But without wading too deeply into a reductive, pointless GOAT conversation, what separates the All-Stars from the Hall of Famers is, more often than not, longevity. That means conjuring magic day after day and, crucially, year after year. Ballplayers and ball fans often respect nothing more than boring, old-fashioned consistency.Β
In other words, legends are measured in decades. Home run No. 300 was a reminder that Ohtani, who turned 32 years old Sunday, is crossing over into legend status before our eyes. This milestone provides an opportunity to appreciate not just what he's doing but also what he has already done.
Remember, Ohtani's offensive profile was not always a sure thing. When he jumped from Japan to MLB ahead of the 2018 season, he struggled mightily at the plate during that first spring training with the Angels. Across 36 plate appearances, he managed just four hits, none of them of the extra-base variety. He struck out 10 times and looked generally overmatched.
For this very website, the typically correct Jeff Passan, now of ESPN, wrote an article that spring titled: The verdict is in on Shohei Ohtani's bat and it's not good. In the piece, published on March 9, 2018, Passan cited eight MLB scouts who, after watching Ohtani in person, expressed serious doubt about whether he would be a viable big-league hitter.
"They want to be wrong," Passan wrote. "For the sake of baseball, they want Shohei Ohtani to blossom into a true two-way player, a starting pitcher extraordinaire and power-hitting dynamo, a multinational marketing sensation. They want their eyes β the ones that have seen Ohtani this spring and believe he cannot hit at the major league level today β to be lying."
By April 6 of that year, Ohtani had clubbed his first three MLB homers in his second, third and fourth MLB games.
On April 9, Passan offered his apology.
This context is crucial because it highlights how none of this was a given. Today, Ohtani as the two-way superstar feels destined, preordained, obvious and inevitable. But his march toward bronze sporting immortality in upstate New York was never a sure thing. Ohtani has adjusted and adapted and done both all over again and again to become the player he has become.
And now, in his ninth MLB season, he has reached a legitimately monumental milestone, one that further solidifies his claim as the best to ever do it β and adds to his growing case as the greatest of all time.
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