Los Angeles Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani has passed legendary baseball player Babe Ruth in career strikeouts.
According to CBS Sports, Ohtani headed into the Angels’ game against the Houston Astros with 500 strikeouts, just two shy of surpassing Ruth’s 501 career strikeouts. It only took Ohtani two innings to reach 502 total career strikeouts.
Ohtani struck out seven batters that night to bring his career total to 507, Yahoo Sports reports. Unfortunately, the Angels went on to lose to the Astros 3-1.
Since Ohtani burst onto the scene many sports journalists and fans have made comparisons between him and the Great Bambino. Some believe Ohtani will be better than the late Ruth. Sam Fels, a writer for Deadspin, felt that Ruth was never a true “two-way player.”
“Ohtani is now on his fourth season of starting full-time and hitting full-time, while also having a couple of seasons of just being a hitter when his elbow turned to putty,” Fells wrote in a recent article for Deadspin. “So this is unprecedented, and we only connect him to Ruth because it’s the only thing in the zipcode to try and give us any sort of comparison.”
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Yahoo Sports also noted that Ohtani has a long way to go before he surpasses Ruth’s homerun record. He currently has 134 home runs to Ruth’s 714 but has only played six seasons compared to Ruth’s 22.
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