GOAT, Asterisk

Shohei Ohtani had a very nice game for himself Monday night. No, a really nice game. OK, an incredible game with two solo-shot homeruns and two doubles along with five walks plus three runs scored and three RBIs in the Dodgers’ 6-5, eighteen-inning marathon win. Let the superlatives rain down, which they are. And, like an idiot, I unmuted some of the broadcast on FOX last night. One of the announcers—they all sound alike to me, except for the fingernails-on-blackboard tones of John Smoltz—very gently dissed Babe Ruth by saying he “only” pitched two full seasons. They must’ve had a bad internet connection up in the booth at Dodger Stadium. Baseball-reference.com has the Sultan of Swat pitching anywhere between 166.1 and 326.1 innings for the four seasons 1915 to 1918 and another 133.1 innings in 1919. That’s the period when he picked up 89 of his 94 wins to go with a 2.28 ERA. I’ll just note in passing the 107 complete games. Ohtani has never pitched over 166 innings in a season. In the regular season this year, he threw 47. I keep looking at his stats and come away with the same conclusion—pitching is his vanity project. A 39-20 record, 3.00 ERA and one complete game. Oh, and every time he goes out to the mound, he risks injury. He’s already had Tommy John surgery and another procedure on his UCL. Smoltz inadvertently called out Ohtani when he suggested the 31-year old needs to learn to vary the speed of his pitches. John, the guy’s 31. He should’ve learned that a long time ago. This may be pushing things a bit, but I’d argue the GOAT does what he did on Monday and then tops himself Tuesday, not at the plate but on the mound. Instead, what happened is that Ohtani pitched a nice game into the seventh inning, when he ran out of gas, trailing 2-1. Reliever Anthony Banda couldn’t keep the two Jays Ohtani put on from scoring, before letting in two runs of his own. Toronto 6 Los Angeles 2 not even a day after losing what’s being ballyhooed as the greatest World Series game of all time. One other reason to pull back on all this GOAT talk. Sorry, but the greatest ballplayer can’t be a DH, at least not until he hits 100 homers a season. Ohtani has played eight years in the major leagues, and, in all that time, he’s played the outfield seven times, none since 2021. In comparison, Ruth started 2222 times in the outfield over his 22-year career. Did I mention the Ohtani Rule, where he gets to switch to DH after being relieved as a pitcher? What exactly am I saying here? That Ohtani belongs on the short list of greatest hitters of all time and that he’s less of a pitcher than the folks on FOX care to admit. Shohei, meet Frank Thomas, another player whose hitting prowess made up for a bad glove. Big Hurt, this is Shohei. You two have a lot in common.