Shohei Ohtani has picked up where he left off before the MLB All-Star break.
Three games post-break, the NL home run leader added to his tally Sunday with one of the loudest shots of the 2024 season.
With the Los Angeles Dodgers leading the Red Sox 5-2, Boston starter Kutter Crawford delivered an 86 mph cutter squarely over the middle of the plate. And Ohtani made him pay.
Ohtani launched the offering deep over the right-field wall for a no-doubt solo home run to extend the Dodgers’ lead to 6-2 in an eventual 9-6 victory.
The win secured a three-game series sweep for the Dodgers, who limped into the All-Star break with one win in their seven previous games. The Red Sox, meanwhile, were red-hot before being swept, with 10 wins in their previous 13 outings.
The home run was Ohtani’s 30th of the season. When it landed 473 feet later, the ball had cleared the right-field bleachers and passed under an awning into the plaza beyond the stands. The blast, with an exit velocity of 116.7 mph, is tied for the third-longest of the MLB season. It’s arguably the most impressive.
The two that were longer were hit in the mile-high air of Denver’s Coors Field. Ohtani claims one of those as well — a 476-foot home run that until Sunday was the longest of the season. Giants slugger Jorge Soler hit a 478-foot shot earlier Sunday at Coors Field that now stands as the longest of the season.
But Ohtani’s 473-footer took place at a mere 500-plus feet above sea level in East L.A. It’s one of the longest in the history of a stadium that’s notoriously stingy with deep shots.
But it’s not the longest homer in Dodger Stadium history. That honor belongs to Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, who launched a home run an estimated 506.5 feet into the parking lot beyond the right-field bleachers in 1969.
Ohtani’s moon shot is, however, the second-longest of the Statcast era, which began with the use of advanced metrics to track ball flight in 2015. Giancarlo Stanton hit a 475-foot shot at Dodger Stadium in 2015.
All of this is a testament to Ohtani’s sensational first season with the Dodgers, which has him the odds-on favorite to win his third MVP trophy in his seventh MLB season.
