by Cary Osborne
If you were at Dodger Stadium this past weekend, not only did you see the reigning Most Valuable Players for each league, but you also saw the May National and American League Players of the Month.
Shohei Ohtani, after a record-setting May, was named the NL Player of the Month for May on Tuesday.
The Yankees’ Aaron Judge won the award for the AL.
This is the sixth Player of the Month Award for Ohtani and second as a Dodger. He was the September 2024 NL Player of the Month.
Ohtani hit .309 (34-for-110) with 15 homers, 17 RBI, five doubles, a triple, 17 walks, 31 runs scored, two stolen bases, a .782 slugging percentage and a .398 on-base percentage across 27 games.
He led the Majors in homers, total bases (86), runs and extra-base hits (21); ranked second in slugging and OPS (1.180), trailing only Judge; and tied for fourth in RBI.
The three-time MVP became the third Dodger with 15 home runs in a single month, joining Pedro Guerrero’s 15 homers in June 1985 and Hall of Famer Duke Snider’s 15 home runs in August 1953.
Overall, Ohtani is one of 35 players since 1901 to accomplish the feat and along with his 15 home runs in June 2023, he is the eighth player in Major League history to hit at least 15 home runs in a month on more than one occasion, joining Mark McGwire (5x); Hall of Famer Babe Ruth (4x); Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg (3x); Sammy Sosa (3x); Albert Belle (2x); Barry Bonds (2x); and Rudy York (2x).
The 2024 World Series Champion slugged homers in three consecutive games twice during the month from May 14th-16th and May 25th-27th, and he has now hit a home run in three straight games 10 times in his career. He hit multiple home runs on May 15th against the
Athletics and May 30th against the Yankees, and launched four leadoff home runs during the month, tied with former teammate Zach Neto for the most in the Majors in May. Ohtani now has 18 career leadoff home runs, and his 12 leadoff blasts since the start of 2024 are second-most in the Majors behind only Kyle Schwarber (15 leadoff homers).
Shohei Ohtani is NL Player of the Month for the second time as a Dodger was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.