What We're Watching From Shohei Ohtani May Never Happen Again

What Shohei Ohtani did Wednesday night shouldn't make sense. And yet, somehow, it keeps happening.

On Wednesday night at Chase Field, Shohei Ohtani reached base safely five times. The Arizona Diamondbacks reached base safely four. Ohtani collected three hits. Arizona managed two. Ohtani also happened to be the Dodgers starting pitcher, threw six scoreless innings, carried a no-hitter into the sixth, struck out six, and lowered his ERA to an almost laughable 0.74.

Read that again.

The Dodgers won 7-0, but the score almost feels incidental when compared to what Ohtani continues to do on a nightly basis. We have become so accustomed to the extraordinary that performances which should leave baseball fans speechless are now discussed as if they are routine. Six shutout innings. Three hits. Five trips on base. Another victory. Another day at the office.

The truly remarkable part of the evening wasn't even found in the box score. Four of the first five times Ohtani reached base came while he was still the Dodgers pitcher. Most starting pitchers spend those innings sitting in the dugout reviewing mechanics, hydrating, studying hitters, or simply trying to catch their breath before heading back to the mound. Ohtani spent them standing on base. One inning he was creating problems for Arizona's pitching staff. A few minutes later he was back on the mound creating problems for Arizona's hitters. Baseball has seen great pitchers. Baseball has seen great hitters. What it has almost never seen is one player doing both at the same time at an elite level.

Remember a few weeks ago when people were wondering if the Dodgers were asking too much of him? There were concerns that the constant demands of being baseball's only true two-way superstar might eventually wear him down. That conversation feels almost quaint now. Ohtani's batting average sits above .300. He ranks among the National League leaders in hitting. His ERA leads the sport. Somehow, the deeper we get into the season, the stronger he seems to become.

His teammates have stopped trying to find new ways to describe it.

"It's incredible," Will Smith said afterward. "He is the greatest player to walk this Earth."

Normally statements like that belong in the category of clubhouse exaggeration. Not this time. Not anymore.

Even rookie Alex Freeland, who contributed three hits and two RBIs in the victory, admitted he finds himself simply watching whenever Ohtani takes the field.

"Every time I get the opportunity to play behind him, I just sit there and take it all in," Freeland said.

He's hardly alone.

The rest of the Dodgers deserve recognition for what was, in truth, a complete team performance. Kyle Tucker launched a two-run homer into the Chase Field pool. Freddie Freeman collected two hits and drove in a pair. Max Muncy added two more hits. The Dodgers pounded out sixteen hits overall and won for the sixteenth time in their last nineteen games. For most teams, that would be the story.

For the Dodgers, it became the backdrop.

The night before, Freeman laughed while talking about Ohtani's recent hot streak, noting that when the best player in the world gets rolling, good things tend to happen for everyone else. Wednesday looked like another example. The Dodgers offense never allowed Zac Gallen to settle in, and Ohtani never allowed Arizona to establish any offensive rhythm of its own. By the middle innings the game felt less like a contest and more like an exhibition of what happens when baseball's most talented player decides to remind everyone exactly who he is.

Early indications are that Ohtani will get Thursday off. After all, six scoreless innings and five times on base would qualify as a productive week's work for most players. For Ohtani, it was simply Wednesday night in Arizona.

The scary part is that performances like this no longer surprise us the way they should. Somewhere along the way, six scoreless innings and three hits from the same player started feeling normal. We begin to expect these performances. We stop appreciating how absurd they really are. Someday Ohtani will retire and the sport will move on, just as it always does. But there is a very real possibility that nobody who plays this game after him will ever do what he is doing right now.

This isn't normal. It isn't common. It isn't something that comes around every generation.

It may be something that comes around only once.