Shohei Ohtani becomes 6th MLB player to post back-to-back 50-HR seasons, after throwing 5 no-hit innings

Shohei Ohtani added yet another item to an already unprecedented résumé on Tuesday.

With a solo homer in the eighth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Los Angeles Dodgers star became the sixth player in MLB history to post 50 homers in back-to-back seasons. He had 54 long balls last season, which was also the first 50-homer, 50-stolen base season ever.

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Naturally, Ohtani hit this homer after throwing five no-hit innings earlier in the game.

The other five players to post consecutive 50-homer seasons: Babe Ruth (1920-21), Mark McGwire (1996-99), Ken Griffey Jr. (1997-98), Sammy Sosa (1998-2001) and Alex Rodriguez (2001-02). Obviously, McGwire and Sosa later had their runs tainted by steroids, while Rodriguez had his own PED allegations later in his career.

As a pitcher, Ohtani struck out five in five hitless innings before manager Dave Roberts pulled him at 68 pitches. His lone blemish: a first-inning walk of Bryce Harper.

Ohtani left the mound with the Dodgers up 4-0, but a Justin Wrobleski meltdown in the sixth inning quickly gave the Phillies the lead. The Dodgers tied the game in the eighth inning, but one more meltdown from Blake Treinen gave the Phillies a 9-6 win and continued a rough stretch for the Dodgers bullpen.

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Per Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, the Dodgers became the first team since 1906 to get five no-hit innings from a starting pitcher then have its bullpen allow at least nine runs.

Ohtani joins Cal Raleigh and Kyle Schwarber in the 50-homer club this season, making 2025 the third season ever to see three players hit 50 homers. The other two were 1998 and 2001, which both had four players. Again, this is the first time it’s happened without the presumed influence of steroids.

There’s also the fact that Ohtani is the only MLB player to hit 50 homers and throw 50 strikeouts in the same season (Ruth stopped pitching regularly the year before his first 50-homer season).

This homer is the latest in Ohtani’s push for a fourth MVP award and his second in the NL. If he pulls it off, he would join Barry Bonds as the only player to win it at least four times (Bonds won it seven times) and he would be the first player to ever win the award in both leagues multiple times.

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Since joining the Dodgers, Ohtani’s bat has been better than even his prime with the Angels, in which he won MVP awards in 2021 and 2023 and finished as runner-up in 2022 (Aaron Judge’s 62-homer season). His return as a pitcher is a work in progress — the Dodgers are still limiting him to a maximum of five innings per start — but it goes without saying he has so far delivered on his record-shattering $700 million contract.

At age 31, Ohtani already has a list of accomplishments unprecedented in baseball, to the point that two seasons with 50 homers is just another fact in the pile.