Could Shohei Ohtani go 50-50 again?

MIAMI — Surprise, surprise. Shohei Ohtani is chasing history.

A season after becoming the first player in MLB history to tally 50 steals and 50 home runs, the Dodgers superstar is well on his way to doing it again.

On Tuesday against the Marlins, Ohtani cranked yet another longball at loanDepot Park. The blast was the sixth of his career across seven games in the South Florida dome. Tuesday’s moon shot came just one day after the three-time MVP laced loanDepot home run No. 5, a 117.9 mph laser into the right-field bullpen. Notably, the two taters were of delightfully different varieties, their apexes a whopping 65 feet apart.

Asked for his thoughts on Ohtani’s latest crush job, Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said, “It was great. Shohei, he just really feels good in this ballpark.”

The Dodgers, playing without Mookie Betts (scheduled off day, though he did pinch hit) and Teoscar Hernandez (injured list) eventually lost Tuesday’s contest 5-4 on a 10th-inning walk-off. It amounts to a speed bump for the best team in baseball. But in Ohtani World, the night carried a smidge of significance — that is, if you care about round numbers.

Ohtani’s high-cresting big fly was his 10th of the year. He also has 10 steals on the season. That means that one year after creating the 50-50 club, Ohtani has reached 10-10 even faster this time around. Through his first 34 games in 2024, the Dodgers DH had “only” eight homers and seven steals. But recently, Ohtani has been riding a hot streak, with a 1.299 OPS over his past 11 games.

“I feel pretty balanced overall, and I let the body take over,” Ohtani told reporters postgame through team interpreter Will Ireton. “And you know, the only adjustment that I'm doing right now is whether I hit it to center field or pull or go the other way.”

Ohtani has missed just two games this season, both for the birth of his first child with wife Mamiko Tanaka. So while Tuesday was his 34th game, it was the Dodgers’ 36th. That means if Ohtani plays in every remaining contest — which feels unlikely, even though he sat out only thrice in 2024 — he’d finish with 160 games played. At his current pace of 0.294 home runs and steals per game, Ohtani would conclude the season with 47 steals and 47 homers.

On June 16 of last year — Dodgers game No. 73 — Ohtani had 19 homers and 15 steals. The following day, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts moved the Japanese dynamo to the leadoff spot. That change turned out to be for good. Ohtani’s numbers, already superb, skyrocketed, as he swiped 44 bags and clocked 35 long balls across the season’s final 89 games.

Which is to say that while Ohtani is currently slightly behind 50/50 pace, there’s reason to believe he’ll pick things up.

Before the 2023 season, MLB instituted a handful of rule changes geared toward incentivizing stolen bases. In the so-called “big-base era,” steals have gradually increased month by month over the course of the season. That’s not by chance. The warm weather likely makes players feel more limber and willing to risk a stolen base. And more inexperienced pitchers, less adept at controlling runners, tend to make more appearances in the summer months.

This trend is also true for offense in general. The past two seasons, home run rates spiked in July and August compared to April and May. That also has to do with hotter conditions, which help with ball flight. Plus, pitchers usually get tired more quickly when working under the summer sun, making them more susceptible to offering up a middle-middle cookie.

But while the weather is on Ohtani’s side, a new dynamic might start working against his 50/50 quest, one that didn’t hamper him last season: his impending return to the mound.

Ohtani underwent his second career elbow surgery in September 2023, and his recovery process has been slower than many expected. That likely has more to do with the immense offensive value he offers the Dodgers than any major physical setback. Still, 20 months removed from the operating room, Ohtani has not yet thrown his slider and has not yet faced live hitters.

As his pitching comeback progresses and ramps up over the summer months, it might take time, energy and focus away from his hitting exploits. Sure, Ohtani has upended expectations and silenced doubters before, but there’s a reason Los Angeles is being supremely careful with its superstar. Concerns about how his body will react to such a large toll are legitimate, even if Ohtani has overcome such obstacles before.

It’s possible, then, that Ohtani could begin to pull back on his baserunning aggressiveness as a return to the rotation approaches. Any home run decrease, however, would obviously be more of a side effect than a strategy.

At the same time, even if a second trip to the 50/50 club evades Ohtani in 2025, he feels like a near-lock to surpass the 40/40 mark, something only six MLB players have ever accomplished. Ohtani, in yet another impressive first, would be the first player to do it twice.