If Shohei Ohtani wants to win the first NL triple crown since 1937, it looks like he’s going to get no help from the San Diego Padres. As you’d expect.
Ohtani entered Saturday with two of the three stats required for the rare feat locked down. His 54 homers lead the NL, 15 ahead of second-place Marcell Ozuna. His 130 RBI are 19 ahead of Willy Adames. That left batting average, where Ohtani is hitting .309, five points short of Padres infielder Luis Arraez’s .314.
That set up two games for Ohtani to chase Arraez, with both players hitting at the offensive paradises of Coors Field and Chase Field. However, when the Padres posted their lineup Saturday, Arraez was nowhere to be found.
Some of the Padres’ starters were still playing, like Manny Machado and Jurickson Profar, but Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill were all given the day off.
To be fair to the Padres, they do have a reason for resting some starters. They clinched the top wild-card spot in the NL with a win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday, meaning they have nothing left to play for this weekend.
It will be interesting, however, to see if Arraez plays again should Ohtani continue one of the hottest streak in MLB history. Sitting a player to protect his batting average wouldn’t be a popular move, but Padres fans probably wouldn’t mind preventing a player on a rival team from achieving even more glory.
Should Arraez sit for the final two games, Ohtani could win the triple crown with the following batting lines: 6-for-8, 6-for-9, 6-for-10, 6-for-11. Going 5-for-7 would tie it. The thing is, Ohtani absolutely seems capable of doing that right now.
Since his three-homer, two-steal game on Sept. 19 to clinch the first 50-50 season in MLB history, Ohtani has hit .706/.737/1.412 with six homers, six doubles, 14 runs, 20 RBI and eight stolen bases. That is an OPS of 2.149.
Ohtani has 48 total bases over the span of those eight games. If you were to count stolen bases as total bases, he would tie Willie Mays for the most in such a span in MLB history.
The triple crown is only a stretch goal for Ohtani at this point, though. His season this year will go down as one of the best offensive seasons in MLB history, starting with his unprecedented combinations of homers and steals, which currently sits at 54-57.
The Dodgers clinched the NL West with a win over the Padres on Thursday and clinched the best record in MLB on Saturday, after the Philadelphia Phillies lost to the Washington Nationals 6-3. Ohtani will begin his playoff career in the NLDS next month.
