OK, Shohei
Shohei Ohtani picked up in the postseason where he left off another likely MVP regular season — with a bang. Ohtani took his usual leadoff spot in the Dodgers’ lineup for Game 1 of their wild-card series against the Reds Tuesday night.
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He worked Reds starter Hunter Greene to a 2-1 count. Greene responded with a 100 mph fastball over the inside corner of the plate. Ohtani turned on it and deposited a laser into the right-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium.
ESPN’s Jon Sciambi barely had time to call the home run before it was over the wall for a 1-0 Dodgers lead.
There’s good reason. The home run was a first-of-its-kind. Or at least a first-of-its-kind in the Statcast era.
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The ball left Ohtani’s bat at 117.7 mph and traveled 375 feet on a line drive. That’s the fastest home run hit off a 100-plus mph pitch since Statcast started tracking such stats in 2015. By a long shot.
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Per MLB Stats, then-Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers previously held the distinction with a 113.7 mph blast off a 100 mph Gerrit Cole fastball against the Yankees on June 27, 2021. Ohtani’s exit velocity Tuesday bested Devers’ by a full 4 mph.
Ohtani’s home run is also one of the hardest hit of any kind in the postseason in the Statcast era. Per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, only Kyle Schwarber, Giancarlo Stanton and Ohtani himself have hit harder home runs since 2015.
It adds up to a stellar start to Ohtani’s postseason. At this point, we shouldn’t expect anything less.
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