Ohtani’s moonflight at Oracle Park invokes memories of Bonds originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Entering his first series at Oracle Park with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani was hitless in three games at Giants camp, going 0-for-8 with the Angels. That streak ended Monday with the first pitch he saw.
And in his seventh at-bat of the series, Ohtani set a harrowing example to all Giants that he would have done just fine as a hitter in San Francisco.
Barry Bonds territory, meet Shohei Ohtani territory.
Ohtani on the first pitch of his second at-bat Tuesday night at 10-2 Dodgers win threw a terribly placed Keaton Winn slider almost into McCovey Cove in the deepest part of the park. The two-time AL MVP cleared the tall brick wall in right-center field and into the stands as well.
“You don’t see many guys hitting the ball in that part of the stadium that far away, and luckily I played with one here,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was quite impressive.”
Roberts was a Giants teammate with Bonds in the final season of the home run king’s storied career, where he hit 28 homers at age 42, including 16 at what was then AT&T Park.
“Yeah, that was Barry’s territory,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s outburst. “There aren’t many guys who can do that.”
Putting the ball on the tee for Ohtani didn’t help the Giants either. Seriously, Winn’s slider to Ohtani was built for batting practice, preparing to appear in global highlights everywhere.
Ohtani’s 12th home run of the 2024 MLB season traveled 446 feet and had an exit velocity of 113.4 mph. By comparison, the Giants’ 3-4-5 hitters on Tuesday night — Matt Chapman, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores — hit a combined eight home runs in 2024.
Jorge Soler’s solo shot off Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson earlier this year had the highest exit velocity on a hit by a Giant this season at 112 mph. Ohtani’s blast was the longest hit ball at Oracle Park at 14 feet so far this season.
It’s been almost two years, August 15, 2022, since a home run was hit by Ohtani in the pitcher’s paradise of Oracle Park. The solo shot was the most-hit ball in the park this year, and the seventh-most-hit ball in the park since the start of the Statcast era in 2015.
The “oohs” and “ahhs” of admiration from a large contingent of Dodgers fans in the stands could not be ignored. Dodger Blue mixed in and perhaps took over the Giants’ Orange and Black in two games – both losses. It’s hard to imagine the tide changing in San Francisco’s favor on Wednesday night as this series comes to an end.
“I think it’s the Ohtani effect,” Roberts said during his pregame availability when asked about Dodgers fans traveling in droves. “He’s a guy who’s certainly changed the game, and people from all over the world are coming to watch him play.
“We traveled well, but this year it’s on another level.”
If all 30 MLB teams could have paid Ohtani in the offseason, they would have handed him a blank check before he could utter the word “no.” The historic chase teams fielded by the unique talent have fans searching social media for clues and tracking flight patterns.
The Giants were considered one of the few teams that had a real shot at signing Ohtani, exactly 30 years after signing Bonds to a then-record $43.75 million contract. One can imagine photos of Bonds roaming the bases in San Francisco, being part of the Giants’ draft pitch. A 35 Splash Hits video by Bonds should have been in the board’s plans to lure Ohtani to the bay.
And even Ohtani’s main memories of San Francisco when he became a worldwide phenomenon in Japan are this stadium and Bonds admiring his 160 career home runs here over the last eight years of his MLB career.
“The image I have of the stadium is very beautiful and historic,” Ohtani said through translator Will Ireton. “I really like the view from this stadium and I’ve seen Barry Bonds hit a lot of home runs, so I’m very familiar with the rivalry between the Dodgers and Giants.”
Ohtani finished a triple shy on the cycle, going 3-for-5 with a home run, double, single and two RBI. He had the two strongest balls of the night and is now 5-for-10 in the first two games of this three-game series. However, there is one thing Ohtani wishes he could change.
Because of the force and distance his home run was hit, it bounced off the concrete instead of floating on the water and causing chaos in the kayak.
“I thought there was one today,” Ohtani said. “I was disappointed it didn’t happen.”
Bonds was present at the Shohei Show, and everyone left muttering the same word that has haunted the left for the past 17 years, while still adoring Ohtani’s latest display of greatness: Barry.
No one has deserved the same comparison purely from a baseball standpoint since the game drove Bonds into retirement after the 2007 season. There are no hypotheticals with Ohtani, just the reality of what is the best baseball player since Bonds as he rehabilitates his right arm, which makes him equally dominant on the other side of the ball.
