by Cary Osborne
So what happened on May 16, 2024?
It’s now the only night of four Shohei Ohtani bobblehead nights at Dodger Stadium where he didn’t hit a home run.
Just an 0-for-2 night with a walk. The memorable part of the evening was the first-ever Dodger Ohtani bobblehead was so appealing that lines snaked deep inside and outside of the Dodger Stadium parking lot. The Dodgers lost to the Reds that night.
The three bobblehead nights since have been memorable because of what the great Ohtani has done from the batter’s box.
The latest being Thursday when the Dodger designated hitter hit a three-run home run in the third inning and then followed it with a laser two-run home run to center field in the fourth inning.
The Dodgers beat the Athletics 19–2.
Ohtani drove in a season-high six runs in the 20th multi-home run game of his career.
“He’s just playing really good baseball,” said manager Dave Roberts. “We saw it all last year. So he’s sort of just doing what Shohei does, which is amazingly, not amazing anymore, I guess.”
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He is now tied for the Major League lead with 15 home runs this season.
Ohtani has homered in each of his last three bobblehead nights:
· Aug. 28 (Decoy bobblehead): 2-for-4, three runs scored, one RBI, Dodger win
· April 2 (MVP bobblehead): 3-for-5, one run, one RBI, Dodger win
· Thursday (50/50 bobblehead): 2-for-5, two runs, six RBI, Dodger win
Ohtani hit a walk-off home run on April 2. The Dodgers didn’t need those dramatics on Thursday.
They were up 15–2 after four innings.
Max Muncy and Andy Pages each homered — with each now having homered in back-to-back games. James Outman’s sixth-inning home run gave the Dodgers a season-high 16 runs and a season-high five home runs. The Dodgers added two more runs in the eighth inning.
Muncy’s homer gives him 193 as a Dodger. He passed Dodger great Carl Furillo for eighth in franchise history.
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It was his third homer of the year. He hit one in his first 39 games this season.
“Still just trying to take it day by day, and still working through some things, still trying to understand some things, but it’s definitely closer,” Muncy said. “You try to build on positives.”
Catcher and organizational top prospect Dalton Rushing, making his Major League debut, had two singles and a walk in five plate appearances.
“I think taking the field for the first pitch, looking around, seeing Dodger Stadium and the fans — it’s an incredible fan base— it’s something you dream of as a kid,” Rushing said. “And being able to live it out tonight was obviously one of the more special moments in my career.”
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Hyeseong Kim reached base all five times with three hits and two walks. He also scored four times and drove in two runs.
Ohtani entered April with an unusual ratio of seven home runs to 10 RBI in 29 games. He has eight home runs and 18 RBI this month in 13 games.
He is batting .365/.452/.942/1.394 in May.
He also has 48 runs scored this season putting him on an incredible pace of 177 runs. Babe Ruth owns the Live Ball Era record (since 1920). He scored 177 runs in 1921.
The great Ohtani does it again (again) on a bobblehead night was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.