Shohei Ohtani is Off to One of His Best Offensive Seasons Ever With Dodgers

Maren Angus-Coombs | Apr 12, 2024

David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Shohei Ohtani is six months removed from his second elbow surgery, has been in the middle of a gambling scandal, and is the center of controversy with his first home run as a Los Angeles Dodger.

But, that hasn't stopped the two-time American League Most Valuable Player from getting off to the best start in his career.

According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, Ohtani's 12 extra-base hits, 21 hits, and .333 batting average are the best in his career through the first 15 games of the season. He has scored 12 runs and accumulated 40 total bases which are tied for a career-best. His .377 on-base percentage, .635 slugging and 1.012 OPS are second-best numbers.

Ohtani put together a string of five games with multi-hit performances for the first time in his career. Ohtani fifth game of the streak was the Dodgers’ 4-2 win over the Minnesota Twins on Monday. He recorded three hits, two runs, one RBI, and one home run. It was Ohtani’s first three-hit game of the season, and he capped it off with his third home run.

Because of his historic start, manager Dave Roberts plans on writing DH next to Ohtani's name for every game this season.

“I think that, where we’re at, the two games that we had in Korea, lends itself to more off days once we started here stateside,” Roberts said. “If I start to see or hear or talk to Shohei and he says he might need a day off, we’ll have that conversation. Right now, with the off days I don’t see it coming in a while.”

The way that the schedule was made gives the Dodgers four days off in the first three weeks of April and they don't play for seven consecutive days until the end of April with a road trip to Washington, Toronto and Arizona.