Shohei Ohtani Achieves Historic 50-50 Milestone with Superhuman Steals and Remarkable Propulsion Secrets

Humanity’s first “50-50”

Finally, Shohei Ohtani (30) has achieved a remarkable feat! On September 20, Japan time, he played as the first batter and designated hitter in the game against the Marlins. He hit two home runs and successfully stole two bases, achieving “50-50” (50 home runs and 50 stolen bases). This is, of course, a “world-first” achievement.

“I’m not really thinking about it too much. I just want to make sure I advance bases when I have the chance. Even if it’s not a stolen base but a tag-up, I always want to have the awareness to advance.”

Ohtani, who hit his 46th home run in the game against the Guardians on September 9, humbly responded when asked by reporters about achieving humanity’s first “50-50.”

While Ohtani is often noted for his powerful home runs, his stolen bases are also superhuman (the following statistics are as of September 11).

“Out of 51 stolen base attempts, he has only failed four times. His success rate exceeds 92%. Ichiro, who won the stolen base title in 2001 with 56 steals, had a success rate of 80%. Alex Rodriguez, who achieved ’42-46′ in 1998, had a success rate of 78%. This shows just how high Ohtani’s stolen base accuracy is,” said a sports newspaper reporter.

What is the excellence of Ohtani’s base running? Takashi Kawamura, a specialist in motion analysis and a professor in the School of Physical Education at Tsukuba University, says:

“Ohtani’s stolen bases rarely involve him being safe by a hair’s breadth. He is comfortably advancing to the next base. Not only does he master being a two-way player and understand the psychology and movements of pitchers, but he also has detailed data on the opponents’ pitching patterns in his head.”

Let’s listen to Professor Kawamura’s explanation while looking at sequential photographs.