I Can't Wrap My Mind Around Shohei Ohtani Batting Almost .800 With Guys On And .000 With No One On Base During The Postseason
We talk all the time about how good Shohei Ohtani is, we know he's the most talented player we've ever seen. More talent than Ruth, than Aaron, than Mays, than Bonds, than anyone who has ever played. We've known he's good, but it took him making the postseason to learn just how good he really can be. With his MONSTER 3-run shot that basically ended the game and really put the pressure on Grimace and the Mets in the series we got to see an incredible stat continue to grow. When Shohei comes up to bat with anyone on base he's 7 for 9 with 2 home runs and 8 RBI, that's a batting average of .778. Read that again, when someone gets on in front of him he's hitting alomost .800. Not in MLB The Show, not in Wiffleball, in his first trip to the postseason. If the Mets were smart they'd figure out a way to clear the bases before Ohtani gets up just to get in his head. Maybe balk guys in on purpose so he then doesn't have anyone on base? Just a thought.
It's truly an incredible run for him and if you want to run it back even further, going back to the regular season he's 17 for 20 with RISP over his past 16 games. Again, that is truly unbelievable. What's also unbelievable is that he's batting .000 with no one on base, 0-22 when the bases are empty. I don't know how to explain that, why is he so good with guys on base and not great this October with the bases cleared? It can't be as simple as a the pitcher having to worry about runners and pitching out of the stretch, can it?
This is a guy who feeds off the pressure of the playoffs. You need a big hit with a guy on second? He's going to get a knock, you want to put Grimace and the Mets aliens in their coffin? Get a guy on and get Shohei a bat. It's strange because he usually leads off, so that's an automatic out to start the game for the most part. But god forbid that #9 hitter gets on, more times than not he's going to score off an Ohtani base knock. From the outside looking in Shohei's playoff numbers don't jump off the page at you....
But when you realize he's hitting .778 with guys on base you'll take it. Plus he still gets on base at an above average rate so you live with it. If there's no one on you feel good about your chances but you know he's going to get one soon, some day soon he'll get a hit in the playoffs with no one on base and I'm sure he'll keep that baseball. But until then he'll just keep mashing with guys on base and boy is that terrifying for baseball. You can't walk him because of the guys that follow him, but you can't pitch to him because there's a good chance that ball is ending up as a souvenir or into the gap. The best players show up when their team needs them, late in the game, high leverage situations, guys on base, Shohei is doing that for the Dodgers and it's worked out so far, up 2-1 in the series and all the momentum is dressed in Dodger blue.
Going back to the original stat, it's such a wild difference with guys on and guys not on, I've never seen something that extreme. In the regular season he was good with guys on, he hit .308 with 22 homers and 98 RBI, but he wasn't THIS good. So he had one of the best seasons we've ever seen out of a player and somehow during the playoffs he found a way to get better. Crazy. We knew we'd get some awesome Ohtani moments once he finally got into October and boy are we getting them.
PS. Every time I see this clip I crack up. I can't believe Mike Francesa was THIS wrong about Ohtani. Truly an all time take.