Shohei Ohtani, with his 300th career home run, is moving into legend status before our eyes
From Shohei Ohtani, something special, something new.
The Dodger’s two way dynamo hit the 300th homer of his MLB career on Tuesday, the latest milestone in a career that constantly redefines the limits of baseball dominance. Leading off the Dodgers’ game, Ohtani put the third pitch he saw, a 93.3-mph sinker from Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen, into the center field seats.
Advertisement
It was yet another addition to Ohtani’s already impressive highlight reel.
That said, almost all of his many accomplishments thus far have been measured and appreciated within the context of his mere presence or greatness in a single game or full season. Ohtani is a fun fact machine in large part because no one else in MLB is hitting or being challenged. To do both, at any level, is amazing. His mere existence often feels improbable – a player whose skills belong more to legends than to modern baseball.
Ohtani’s four MVP awards — more than anyone in MLB history other than Barry Bonds, who may still be coming — are a reminder of that greatness.
Advertisement
What happened on Tuesday carried a slightly different lilt. Because while home run No. 300 wasn’t very remarkable in itself, it represented the first statistical milestone of Ohtani’s already storied major league career.
There is a small but important difference between being the greatest and being the best ever. Ohtani is, arguably, the latter. His performance in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS — 10 strikeouts in six scoreless innings on the mound, going 3-for-3 with three home runs at the plate — was a sports milestone. No one has ever been so incredibly good at this thing we call baseball.
Advertisement
But without getting too deep into the reductive, pointless GOAT debate, what separates the All-Star from the Hall of Kings is, in general, longevity. That means making magic day after day and, more importantly, year after year. Football players and football fans often have no respect for anything but boring, old-fashioned consistency.
In other words, legends are measured in decades. Home run No. 300 was a reminder that Ohtani, who turned 32 on Sunday, is becoming a legend right before our eyes. This historic event provides an opportunity to appreciate not only what he is doing but also what he has already done.
Remember, Ohtani’s offensive profile hasn’t always been a sure thing. While making the jump from Japan to MLB before the 2018 season, he struggled at the plate during the first spring training with the Angels. In 36 plate appearances, he managed just four hits, none of which were extra-base hits. He struck out 10 times and looked very fit.
Advertisement
On this same website, the good Jeff Passan, now of ESPN, wrote an article titled: Decision found in Shohei Ohtani’s bat and it’s not good. In the piece, published on March 9, 2018, Passan cited eight MLB scouts who, after watching Ohtani in person, expressed serious doubts about whether he could be a major league hitter.
“They want to make a mistake,” Passan wrote. “For the sake of baseball, they want Shohei Ohtani to blossom into a true two-way player, a starting pitcher extraordinaire and a hitting dynamo, an international marketing sensation. They want their eyes — those who saw Ohtani this spring and believed he couldn’t hit at the big league level today — to lie.”
By April 6 of that year, Ohtani had hit his first three MLB home runs in his second, third and fourth MLB games.
On April 9, Passan apologized.
Advertisement
This situation is important because it highlights that none of this was given. Today, Ohtani as a two-dimensional star feels destined, predetermined, obvious and inevitable. But his march to bronze sports immortality in upstate New York was far from certain. Ohtani has adjusted and adapted and done both over and over to become the player he is.
And now, in his ninth MLB season, he’s officially reached the milestone, cementing his claim as the best ever — and adding to his growing case as the greatest of all time.
