He's the National Gallery, he's his own salary, he's fireworks

I went to the Mariners getaway game against the Yankees on Thursday afternoon with my friend Andy, who grew up a Mariners fan but doesn't know from baseball these days (case in point: He hasn't heard of Aaron Judge), and the game wasn't awful. We didn't get swept. We won 3-2, via first-inning ineptitude by Yankees fielders, and by keeping Aaron Judge, if not Jazz Chisolm Jr., in the park. Judge hit a towering shot to dead centerfield that drews oohs and aahs from the crowd, like fireworks, but Julio Rodriguez caught it near the wall. Jazz, meanwhile, hit a liner that barely snuck over the rightfield wall for their 2.

We got our 3 in the bottom of the first: single, foul out, BB, and then a bunt by Luke Raley that the Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt pounced on, dropped, picked up, too late. Bases juiced. Justin Turner followed with a liner to left that was a sure sacrifice fly ... until Yankees call-up phenom Jasson [no sic] Dominguez dropped it for a run. Bases still juiced. Then we got a legit sac fly to right for our second run. The third came on a J.P. Crawford single. Three runs, one earned, I'll take it. Yankees looked bad. We'd blown the game the night before (Julio thinking Randy's bat flying at him at third meant dead ball, and it didn't, and he was picked off), which clinched another playoff berth for the Evil Empire, so maybe there was some letdown on their part this afternoon. Maybe they didn't like the blue skies in Seattle. This was my first Mariners game since Dan Wilson took over as manager and Edgar as hitting coach, and, yes, it wasn't as dispiriting as it's been. My friend Tim has crunched the numbers and they suggest we've made one small step in the standings and one giant leap at the plate. Go, Edgar!

Anyway, I was telling my father all of this when I returned home. Dad, who's been recovering from a stroke at a hospital in Minneapolis, was trotting out his usual complaints about the sinking Minnesota Twins and the managerial ineptitude of Rocco Baldelli, and between us it was a bit dispiriting; so, as I made myself a drink in the kitchen, to liven things up, to accentuate the positive as the man sang, I passed along to my father an ESPN headline I'd seen earlier: Shohei Ohtani, whom we'd been tracking all summer like all true baseball fans, had hit three homeruns and stolen two bases against the Marlins in Miami, and now sat at 51-51 in each category.

For those who don't know, there are many members of the 30-30 club (30 HRs, 30 SBs, indicative of power and speed), and there are six members of the 40-40 club, Shohei included, and now there is one member of the 50-50 Club: him. He's the only member of the 45-45 Club, too. Put it this way: between the 43-43 Club and wherever he winds up, it'll be just him. In all of baseball history. He's that much of an outlier. He's that good. 

When I told Dad the good news, he laughed, and then asked the appropriate question I hadn't considered: “How do you steal two bases when you hit three homeruns? He must've gotten some other hits.”

He did. He went 6-6. He had a day. He had a career in a day. He hit three homers, two doubles, a single, and stole two bases. He drove in 10. He had 17 total bases.

Some perspective: Only three players in baseball history have ever had more total bases in a single game. Only five have ever driven in more runs in a single game. And he did it while also becoming the first man to reach 50-50 and while also helping clinch a playoff berth for the LA Dodgers. Crazy. And one of his doubles he tried to stretch into a triple but was tossed out by a step. If he'd made it, he would've hit for the cycle. Some are wondering if it isn't the greatest game anyone's ever played. Some are wondering if he isn't the greatest player who's ever played. One thing is certain: He brings joy and amazement wherever he goes.

Oh, and next year he goes back to pitching. Since this year he's recovering from Tommy John surgery. This is his recovery year.

I remember when he first came up—or over from the Japanese leagues, in 2018, this guy who thought he could both hit and pitch at the Major League level, and was that even allowed? Wasn't that just asking for trouble? And then I saw a replay of him hitting his first triple and was just dumbfounded. Wait, the guy's FAST, too? He was tall and broadshouldered and he moved with some combo of grace and speed I'd never seen before. I remember jumping on social to extol his virtues. Are people SEEING this? And then he got injured and I guess that showed him. No. He kept going. From 2021-23, with the moribund Angels, he won two MVPs, finished second the other year, and finished fourth in Cy Young voting that same season. As a pitcher, he's gone 38-19 with a 3.01 ERA and 608 strikeouts in only 481 innings pitched. As a hitter, he keeps improving. As a baserunner, he keeps improving. In 2021, his first MVP season, he had 10 caught stealings, leading the league, against only 26 stolen bases. This season? 52 SBs against four CSs. He's leading the league in HRs, RBIs, runs scored, SLG, OPS and total bases. He's 17 TBs from 400, which would make him the first player to 400 since 2001. If you eliminate the PED years, no one's done it since Jim Rice in 1978. He belongs in a higher league. He's joy and amazement. He's fireworks. 

This season, no doubt, he'll make it three MVPs, so he'll become only the second man in baseball history, after Frank Robinson, to win MVPs in both leagues. That's nice. He'll finally get to join a club that has another member.