How Shohei Ohtani and his pursuit of historic 50-50 season has unexpectedly helped Marlins save face in Dodgers series
With Shohei Ohtani sitting at 48 home runs and 49 steals, every single game he plays has a reasonable chance of being historic. He is pursuing the first-ever 50-homer, 50-steal season in MLB history, and he's so close now that it could genuinely happen at any given moment. Teams that pitch to him are at risk of giving up a home run. If they work around him, he's almost a lock to steal a base.
Naturally, that has fans interested. Everyone wants to be able to see a theoretical part of history, so they're coming to the ballpark in droves. That happened when the Los Angeles Dodgers visited Atlanta, and the Ohtani show had a profound impact on the Dodgers' more recent opponent.
The Miami Marlins are bad and don't usually see many fans in the stands. With Ohtani and a 50/50 chase in town, they did. They saw a staggering 37% increase in fans for Tuesday night’s game as 17,902 people sat in the stands to watch Ohtani hit his 48th homer.
On Wednesday night, Shohei Ohtani stole his 49th base and the Marlins had another 17,138 fans in the stadium. That pushed them over the one million mark for the season, a number they'd have struggled to reach without Ohtani.
Only the Oakland Athletics have worse overall attendance, but fans came out in droves to watch the Marlins, likely hoping that Ohtani would have a career outing and set records in the process.
It is similar to when Aaron Judge was chasing Roger Maris in 2022. Fans came out in droves to every single game hoping they'd see a historic blast. This year, it's Ohtani who gets that treatment.
Will Shohei Ohtani cross the 50-steal, 50-homer mark?
The Los Angeles Dodgers have 10 games remaining and Shohei Ohtani needs one steal and two home runs. Barring a stunning slump, it seems very likely that Ohtani will get to 50/50. However, there's no guarantee.
If Ohtani gets on base, he is very likely to steal. He proved that earlier this week. He picks his spots well, but there's not a lot that defenses can do if he gets on first base. That means he's all but assured of stealing 50 bases this year.
The home runs are another story. While he only needs two in 10 games, which is hardly a hot streak, these are harder to come by. Pitchers might work around him, and even if he gets a pitch to hit, home runs are hard to get.
Aaron Judge, the most prolific home run hitter in baseball for the New York Yankees, had a 16-game stretch without a single home run. That could happen to Ohtani, especially with such pressure on him to close the season with two homers.