Shohei Ohtani clears seats at Dodger Stadium with 473-foot HR
LOS ANGELES -- If you combine his time as a player, coach and manager, Dave Roberts has seen close to 1,000 games at Dodger Stadium.
He had never seen a baseball hit where Shohei Ohtani sent it Sunday.
"Gosh, man!" Roberts exclaimed. "He just never ceases to amaze."
Ohtani's 30th home run this season, in his 100th game as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, traveled 473 feet and landed beyond the reach of ticketed customers. It cleared two entire sections of stands in right-center field, traveled below the roof that sits beyond them, bounced past the concourse below and wound up in the neighboring walkway of Dodger Stadium's Centerfield Plaza.
ESPN's cameras caught several of Ohtani's teammates gawking from the dugout railing along the third-base line as he rounded the bases in the bottom of the fifth. Austin Barnes had just homered for the first time this season and was looking elsewhere when he "heard like a gunshot and everybody screaming." He was unable to track the path of Ohtani's batted ball.
"He's a freak," Barnes said after the Dodgers' 9-6, sweep-clinching victory over the Boston Red Sox. "I've never seen someone like him."
Ohtani now holds the second-longest Dodger Stadium homer since ESPN began tracking home-run distances in 2006, trailing only Matt Holliday's 476-foot drive from Sept. 3, 2006. (Statcast, whose measurements aren't considered as reliable before 2018, has Giancarlo Stanton's May 12, 2015, home run listed at 475 feet, but ESPN has it at 467.)
Only five homers have ever cleared Dodger Stadium entirely, according to a list compiled on the team website: from Fernando Tatis Jr. in 2021, Mark McGwire in 1999, Mike Piazza in 1997 and Willie Stargell in 1973 and 1969. Ohtani's might not technically count because it didn't sail above the roof.
Asked if he might someday join Stargell as the only left-handed hitters to do so, Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, said: "That's what I hope. I think I'm going to have a lot more opportunities to do so, so definitely looking forward to one of those."
Ohtani is now just the seventh player in major league history to amass both 30 home runs and 20 stolen bases within his team's first 100 games, joining Tatis (2021), Christian Yelich (2019), Jose Ramirez (2018), Alfonso Soriano (2006), Jeff Bagwell (1999) and Alex Rodriguez (1998).
At his current rate, he might become the first player ever to be named Most Valuable Player while serving exclusively as a designated hitter.
Ohtani, 30, has once again displayed elite power and speed while rehabbing as a pitcher, and he's also hitting as efficiently as he ever has, improving even from the monster offensive season he put up last year. His slash line sits at .315/.401/.638. His OPS of 1.039 ranks second in the major leagues, behind only Aaron Judge. His 5.4 FanGraphs wins above replacement rank fifth in the majors and first in the NL, even though he hasn't had the opportunity to provide value as a defender or pitcher.
Sunday's home run -- on a down-the-middle cutter from right-hander Kutter Crawford -- was just the latest in a long list of moments that have left his new teammates in awe.
"He's a special player -- all around, all sides of the ball," said Gavin Lux, one of six Dodgers to homer Sunday. "I'm looking forward to seeing him pitch next year, too."
