Angels’ Shohei Ohtani hits 493-foot home run for 30th of year

One of the best months in history has just ended for the world’s coolest and most talented baseball player. Los Angeles Heavenly messengers two-way star Shohei Ohtani smacked 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 principal player to arrive at 30 homers this year.

Giancarlo Stanton, a slugger for the New York Yankees, had the previous record for the longest home run of the season. He hit a ball 485 feet back on April 2. Ohtani’s career’s longest home runs are as follows:

• 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 homers have come against left-gave pitchers. This guy can’t be slowed down by the left-on-left advantage alone. Commit an error – – Henry left a 84 mph changeup directly in the center of the plate Friday, which surely qualifies as a mix-up – – and Ohtani will hit it far. It makes no difference which arm you throw with.

Before going deep against the D-Backs, Ohtani had hit an incredible.392/.484/.931 heading into Friday’s game. Since Kyle Schwarber, who was playing for the Washington Nationals at the time, hit 16 home runs in June 2021, he is the first player to hit 15 home runs in a single month.

In addition, Ohtani has pitched 30 1/3 innings in five starts this month with a 3.26 earned run average and 37 strikeouts. He has a 1.415 Operations as a hitter and a .670 Operations permitted as a pitcher in June. It is not unreasonable to consider this one of baseball’s best months.

Ohtani has a.310/.394/.674 batting line for the season, and he has thrown 95 1/3 innings with a 3.02 earned run average and 127 strikeouts. With 6.5 WAR, he leads the entire team.