Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani returns to unprecedented dominance

The Los Angeles Dodgers hadn't kept Shohei Ohtani in the batting lineup while he was pitching in nearly a month.

But they allowed their two-way superstar to be just that on Wednesday night against the San Diego Padres, and he didn't disappoint.

Playing on the road, Ohtani led off the game with a solo home run.

He then proceeded to throw five shutout innings and lower his season ERA to 0.73.

Turns out, Ohtani might be just fine. There remains no one like him on the planet, and after there were some worries about his overall workload this season, Ohtani appears to have returned to that realm where no one else has ever existed.

Because a leadoff home run and five scoreless pitching innings in the same game? No one else does that.

Shohei Ohtani hits the first pitch of the game out of the park ☄️ pic.twitter.com/opPe7iogy4

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According to MLB.com, this is the seventh time that Ohtani has homered in a scoreless start, which broke a tie with Bob Gibson for most such outings in MLB history. And Gibson wasn't hitting his home runs leading off a game.

That home run actually came on the very first pitch of the game. Ohtani sure seemed happy to be back in the batter's box on a pitching day for him.

Ohtani's 0.73 ERA is also quite notable, because according to MLB.com:

"In the Live Ball Era (since 1920), Ohtani holds the sixth-lowest ERA by a traditional starting pitcher through the first eight starts of a season. Only Fernando Valenzuela (0.50 in 1981), Mike Norris (0.52 in 1980), Zack Greinke (0.60 in 2009), Al Benton (0.70 in 1954) and Jacob deGrom (0.71 in 2021) had better marks."

Ohtani's bat hasn't been quite as good this season as in recent years, but maybe he's finding his groove. He certainly looked like himself on Wednesday night.

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