Tag Archives: Shohei Ohtani

American exceptionalism and the world

On Friday, we got a double-barreled dose of the American exceptionalism that MLB promotes wholeheartedly.

A day before the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres opened Game 1 of their NLDS, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were asked about their feelings ahead of their “first” postseason games.

Ohtani, who came to MLB as a sixth-year pro and a former MVP, was a veteran of 13 major league postseason games between the ages of 19 and 21. In those, he went 2-2 with one save in five games as a pitcher with 29 strikeouts and a 4.38 ERA. During those years, as a part-time DH, Ohtani slashed .262/.311/.381 with one RBI.

Asked if he felt pressure ahead of his first postseason game, Ohtani said, “Nope.”

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The real super power of Shohei Ohtani

For the nth time in his career, Shohei Ohtani showed what a remarkable individual he is, not because of his ability to both pitch and hit at an elite level or even his superb combination of power and speed on offense, but because of his ability to stay focused on the present.

He already has arguably the most extraordinary career in baseball history, and put an exclamation point on his current exceptional season with a singular performance, displaying a talent rarely talked about – his mental discipline.

On Thursday, Ohtani became the first player to reach 50 home runs and 50 steals in Major League Baseball with a 6-for-6, three-homer, two-steal, 10-RBI game.

Most remarkable, however, is that Ohtani has reached such milestones after setting course on a journey that few people in the professional baseball world thought was possible, and which some vocally opposed.

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