MLB: Shohei Ohtani does it again, turns in another out-of-this-world night and drops his ERA to 0.74

Ohtani is not playing baseball anymore. He is rewriting it.

At this point, comparisons are almost pointless. Shohei Ohtani does not fit neatly into any box. He walks through them, smashes them, then builds new ones. On Wednesday night in Phoenix, against the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers superstar turned in another performance that sends everyone back through the record books.

Six scoreless innings. Just two hits allowed. Six strikeouts. An earned run average trimmed to 0.74. And as if dominating on the mound was not enough, Ohtani also reached base five times, with three singles and two walks, in Los Angeles’ 7-0 win at Chase Field.

A full game. A monster game. Almost absurd. The kind of night where even team-mates stop trying to sound measured.

Will Smith summed up the mood with a line that fits the era: “He is the best player ever to step on this earth.”

Good luck asking him to tone it down after that.

A rare feat not seen for more than a century

Since 1900, only four players have thrown at least six scoreless innings and reached base at least five times in the same game. The other names belong to another era: Mel Stottlemyre in 1964, Mel Parnell in 1951, Hod Eller in 1920.

But Ohtani is different even in the way he joins that list. The other three pitched complete games. He did not. That is where his age changes everything.

With the “Ohtani rule”, introduced in 2022, a two-way player can leave the mound and stay in the lineup as the designated hitter. Before that, to reach base five times after pitching, you basically had to go the distance. Ohtani is playing in a version of baseball that had to adapt to him.

This is not just a player taking advantage of a rule. It is a player who forced the sport to create one to keep up with his talent.

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Let’s do it

Six innings of total control

On the mound, Ohtani opened the night like a man in a hurry to remind everyone that his season as a pitcher is turning into something very real. The first 11 Diamondbacks hitters came up empty. Add in his previous outing, and he had now retired 34 straight batters without allowing a hit.

Gabriel Moreno finally broke the run in the fourth inning with a double down the right-field line. That was the first real warning sign. Not a crack.

Arizona tried to build something, then again in the sixth with two runners on base. Nothing. Ohtani shut the door, killed the momentum, and left the D-backs with that sick feeling: there might have been a chance, but never really an opening.

His line was clinical: six innings, no runs, two hits, one walk, six strikeouts.

An ERA that is starting to look ridiculous

After 10 starts this season, Ohtani now has a 0.74 ERA. At that point, we are no longer talking about a hot start. We are talking about historic territory.

Since ERA became an official stat in 1913, only two starting pitchers have posted a lower mark through their first 10 starts of a season: Jacob deGrom in 2021 at 0.56 and Juan Marichal in 1966 at 0.59.

To be mentioned in that sentence is massive enough. To do it while also being one of the biggest bats in the lineup is something else entirely.

Ohtani is not just matching the best pitchers in the game. He is doing it while carrying an offensive load nobody else at this level can handle.

And in the meantime, he hits too

The wild beauty of this night is that Ohtani did not just shine between defensive half-innings. He was everywhere.

Three singles, two walks, five trips on base. His batting average climbed back above .300 for the first time since Opening Day. Four of those five times on base came while he was still the starting pitcher in the game.

In other words, he did not just have to deal with Arizona’s hitters. He also ran, worked the bases, sparked the offence, then went back to the mound with the job of keeping the whole thing under control.

Shohei Ohtani (the pitcher): 2 hits, 1 walk
Shohei Ohtani (the hitter): 3 hits, 2 walks pic.twitter.com/WgeVA3BD5y

— MLB (@MLB) June 4, 2026

That is where this starts to feel almost unreal. A dominant pitcher usually tries to save every ounce of energy. Ohtani spends his night producing in every direction.

Fatigue is real, but it does not stop him

After the game, Ohtani admitted he was feeling it on the mound and had done plenty of running on the bases. No surprise there. A performance like that takes a physical toll nobody else in MLB really knows.

But he also offered a simple point: the more the offence scores, the more it helps him as a pitcher. In plain terms, reaching base and helping the run total is not just extra work. It gives him breathing room, lets him pitch with a lead, and forces the opponent to play under pressure.

That is the whole Ohtani puzzle. What should drain him also helps him dominate.

The Dodgers are living with a historic luxury

Los Angeles won 7-0 and at worst will split this four-game series against Arizona. But beyond the result, the Dodgers are living through something rare: they have a player who can deliver a Cy Young night and an All-Star bat night in the same game.

Will Smith sees it every day, and his line was not empty hype. When a catcher watches a player throw six scoreless innings and reach base five times, he does not need to reach for technical language. He says what everyone is thinking.

Ohtani is in a class of his own.

Baseball keeps trying to catch him

Great players dominate their era. The truly great ones change it. Ohtani often looks like he is playing in a version of baseball the rest are only discovering as they go.

He pitches like an ace. He hits like a star. He drags old names out of the archives. He turns every game into a lab, every stat into a headache, every comparison into a losing battle.

On Wednesday night in Phoenix, he did more than win a game.

He reminded everyone that modern baseball now carries his stamp.

And as long as he keeps doing that, the superlatives will always be playing catch-up.

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