Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani made MLB history on Friday night, and did so in dramatic fashion
Friday night Shohei Ohtani joined one of baseball’s — if not all of sports — most exclusive clubs.
But as is often the case with one of the sport’s brightest stars, he did so in dramatic fashion.
Ohtani came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night with the bases loaded in a tie game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the visiting Tampa Bay Rays. On the first pitch of the at-bat Ohtani saw an 84-mph slider down and away from Colin Poche, and Ohtani went down to get it, putting himself in the record books and the Dodgers in the win column:
Ohtani’s walk-off grand slam was his 40th home run of the season, and having swiped second base earlier in the game for his 40th steal of the season, that made the superstar just the sixth player in MLB history to join the venerated 40-40 club. This also marks the second year in a row that a player has joined the 40-40 club as last year Ronald Acuña Jr. became the fifth member, and just the first player ever to post a 40-70 year as he finished the year with 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases.
Now Ohtani has the rest of the season to do something even bigger: Become the founding member of the 50-50 club.
No player has ever finished the season with both 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases, but with Friday night’s performance, Ohtani is now exactly on pace to finish the year with 50 home runs, and 50 steals.
In addition, Ohtani became the fastest player ever to reach the 40-40 mark. In 2006 Alfonso Soriano needed 147 games to join the 40-40 club, but Friday night’s game was Ohtani’s 126th game of the season.
We are, without question, witnessing something special.
