Ohtani 2026: On course for the greatest season in baseball history? 
Since 2021, Shohei Ohtani has made the impossible look routine. We have seen him overpower hitters on the mound with a 2.84 ERA, only for an elbow injury to turn him into a pure elite bat. Everyone remembers his historic 50/50 season in 2024. But in April 2026, an even crazier question is starting to do the rounds: what if Ohtani finally managed to fuse his “ace pitcher” self and his “all-time slugger” self over a full season?
A arm sharper than ever
After easing back onto the mound last year, Ohtani looks like he has all the pieces back in place. Before his planned start on Wednesday night against the Giants in San Francisco, he is carrying a downright absurd stat line: a 0.50 ERA. In three starts and 18 innings, he has given up just one run. Freed from rehab stress and the madness of his free-agent saga from years past, the Japanese star is now openly targeting the Cy Young Award, one of the few major honours still missing from his collection.
Better than Babe Ruth and even his own legend
At the plate, Ohtani keeps tearing through the biggest records in the sport. On Monday in Colorado, he reached base for a 52nd straight game, breaking Babe Ruth’s best career mark. On Tuesday night in San Francisco, he stretched that streak to 53. He is still not hitting at his usual rate, but the underlying numbers say he has never struck the ball harder. Put together his best seasons on the mound and at the plate, and analysts believe he could hit a WAR of 14.6, which would simply be the greatest individual season ever, ahead of the peaks of Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds.
The cost of doing it all
It is not all perfect, though. One thing stands out: Ohtani has almost completely stopped running the bases this year. His top-end speed has fallen into the bottom third of the league, a sign that keeping his body intact now matters more than anything else with the two-way workload. That is the price of trying to last six months at this level. In 2021 and 2023, fatigue or injury stopped him from finishing the perfect season. But in 2026, for the first time in three years, everything seems lined up for sport to witness something we have never seen before.
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