The last few home runs to fly off of Shohei Ohtani’s bat have disappeared into the night.
He hit two homers in Colorado that sailed into the centerfield forest and one on Friday at Dodger Stadium that found the back of a climbing tarp in center field near the upper section of seats in the Right Field Pavilion. Ohtani then hit another on Saturday to help the Dodgers grab the win, netting his 23rd of the year.
The 455-foot home run on Friday was the third-longest hit by a Dodger at Dodger Stadium in the Statcast Era and gave the Los Angeles Dodgers a 2-0 lead. The lead eventually disappeared and the Dodgers lost 3-2 in extra innings but Ohtani’s performance didn’t get lost.
The designated hitter had a stretch of four games where his pitch selection expanded outside the zone. He struck out nine times in 20 plate appearances from June 2-6. Since then, he has only struck out six times in 64 at-bats.
“I think it’s more about my posture and being able to see and have really good awareness of the strike zone,” Ohtani said on why things have been going well for him.
His ability to control the zone has helped him achieve crazy numbers recently.
“I think he just took a step back and understood what they were trying to do and when he’s really good, and so he sort of reset himself and really made a point to control the zone,” Roberts said.
