
Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani averaged .293 for the month with 12 home runs, 24 RBIs, and a 1.110 OPS. Anyone else with those numbers would get a huge shout-out. For him, well, it’s getting kind of expected. Almost ho-hum.
Overall, he’s averaging .316 – his best start since he came to MLB with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018 – with 26 home runs, 62 RBI and a 1.034 OPS. After three months, he’s ahead of last year’s MVP-winning pace in batting average, hits, doubles, home runs, RBIs, total bases, stolen bases, and OPS+. His hard-hit rate and strikeout percentage – if they hold up the rest of the season – would be the best of his seven-year MLB career. His line-drive percentage is up, and his groundball percentage is down. And he’s just a shade lower than last season in on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
His 4.7 WAR figure, according to Baseball Reference, is best in the National League and third-best in MLB. He ranks second in MLB in batting average and OPS, and he’s third in home runs.
Against the Chicago Cubs on June 26, his leadoff home run marked the 10th consecutive game in which he had at least one RBI, a Dodger club record.
The only wart on his record is that he’s had less success than expected with runners in scoring position (RISP); From 2021 to 2023, Ohtani was one of Major League Baseball’s best hitters with RISP. He batted .305 in those situations, the 22nd-best mark in the majors in that span. At the of June, according to FanGraphs, he was hitting .244 in those situations with one home run and 27 RBIs. He was averaging .329 with the bases empty and .310 with runners on base but not in scoring position.
Ohtani, of course, is not pitching this year because of off-season Tommy John surgery, and that may be one reason he’s doing so well offensively.
“I think it’s unquestionable that I’m able to recover properly because there’s less of a workload,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “Plus, as I pile up experience year after year, I’m growing as a hitter. I think that’s leading to good results.”
Dodger manager Dave Roberts added, “I think Shohei understands that when you show you can control the strike zone, take balls, even in hitters’ counts, that a lot of special things happen,” Roberts said. “In years past, he had a big tendency to chase because he likes to swing. But when you [lay off bad pitches], you earn pitches in the strike zone.”
Also, check out this play that Dodger batboy Javier Herrera made on a hard-hit foul that could easily have struck Ohtani. Ohtani was getting ready to go on deck when a liner went screaming into the dugout. It looked like the ball could have hit him in the head, but Herrera casually made a barehanded catch and then just handed the ball to a fan. Ohtani later took to Instagram and called Herrera “My Hero.”
Yuki Matsui

Matsui, a 28-year-old in his first MLB season, missed much of spring training with back issues, throwing only three innings, but he has been solid for the Padres in the regular season.
In May, he had a stretch of three games in which he gave up four earned runs in 2.2 innin