Only one player in the last 110 years has tried to do what the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani is doing this season, which is to pitch and hit successfully at the big-league level.
Babe Ruth twice won more than 20 games and led the American League in ERA and starts before the Red Sox, then the Yankees, decided pitching was distracting from Ruth’s hitting and put him out to pasture in right field.
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Over the next three seasons, Ruth broke the major league record for home runs three times.
The Dodgers and Ohtani insist he’ll remain a two-way player for the time being, but recent performances suggests both the Red Sox and Yankees may have been on to something when they took Ruth off the mound.
Read more: Max Muncy is back with four RBIs in Dodgers’ rout of Cardinals
Ohtani made his eighth start of the year Wednesday and it was his best as a Dodger, with the right-hander giving up just a tainted run on two hits and striking out a season-high eight in four innings. Perhaps more important, he also slugged his first home run in 10 games in the third inning of a 5-3 matinee loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
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It was the first truly Ruthian two-way performances for Ohtani since he joined the Dodgers but it was one the team’s defense and bullpen wasted, with three relievers combining to yield four runs on 10 hits over the final five innings.
The two most important ones came in the eighth, when the Cardinals turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead, greeting Alex Vesia with a pair of singles before a two-out hit from Jordan Walker drove in the tying run and the winning one scored on a throwing error by third baseman Alex Freeland.
“It never feels good,” manager Dave Roberts said of the loss, his team’s 17th in 30 games since July 1. “Is there a level of frustration the way the second half has started off? Yeah. We just haven’t synced up. We just can’t get on track offensively. We’re not playing great.”
That can’t be said of Ohtani, although the effort he gave at the plate Wednesday equaled what he’s been doing on the mound recently. He has posted a 2.37 ERA and struck out 25 in 19 innings in his eight starts, yet in the same eight games he’s batted .219. In his last six starts on the mound, he’s gone just three for 24 at the plate.
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That’s part of a slump that began in mid-June, when Ohtani made his pitching debut for the Dodgers. At the time he led the majors in runs and led the National League in homers and slugging…