The coolest and most talented baseball player in the world just wrapped up one of the best months in history. Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani swatted his 30th home run of the season -- and his 15th home run of June -- against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night (ARI 6, LAA 2). He's the first player to reach 30 homers this year.
Here is Ohtani's 30th homer, which Statcast measured at 493 feet. It is the longest home run in baseball this season and the longest of Ohtani's career:
The previously longest homer of the season belonged to New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton. He hit a ball 485 feet back on April 2. Here are the longest homers of Ohtani's career:
493 feet: June 30, 2023 vs. D-Backs (Tommy Henry)470 feet: June 8, 2021 vs. Kansas City Royals (Kris Bubic) 463 feet: July 9, 2021 vs. Seattle Mariners (Marco Gonzales)463 feet: July 27, 2021 vs. Colorado Rockies (Austin Gomber)463 feet: June 25, 2022 vs. Seattle Mariners (Logan Gilbert)Ohtani's four longest home runs have come against left-handed pitchers. Not even the left-on-left advantage can slow this guy down. Make a mistake -- Henry left an 84 mph changeup right in the middle of the plate Friday, which certainly qualifies as a mistake -- and Ohtani's going to hit it a long way. Doesn't matter what arm you throw with.
Entering play Friday, Ohtani was hitting an unreal .392/.484/.931 in June, and that was before going deep against the D-Backs. He is the first player with 15 home runs in a calendar month since Kyle Schwarber, then with the Washington Nationals, hit 16 home runs in June 2021.
Ohtani has also pitched to a 3.26 ERA with 37 strikeouts in 30 1/3 innings spanning five starts this month. He has a 1.415 OPS as a hitter and a .670 OPS allowed as a pitcher in June. It is not a stretch to call this one of the best months in baseball history.
For the season Ohtani is hitting .310/.394/.674 while throwing 95 1/3 innings with a 3.02 ERA and 127 strikeouts. He leads all players with 6.5 WAR.
