When it comes to pitching to Shohei Ohtani, the San Francisco Giants have a pretty good idea of what they’re going to do this offseason.
The two-way superstar is set to hit free agency in the winter, and the Giants will be one of 30 teams making an all-out pursuit to convince him to wear their uniform and cash their checks, which are sure to set records for North American sports.
But first, they must deal with him in an opposing uniform this week. That is not so simple.
“From my perspective, he’s probably the most dangerous hitter in baseball,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said, also putting San Diego’s Juan Soto in the conversation. “We were looking at his numbers against lefties and righties, and they’re scary good.”
Increasingly, that has led teams to raise the question: Why even give him a chance?
Last week, Ohtani played a stretch of six games in which he was intentionally walked six times. That kind of treatment is reserved for the rarest of hitters: only Soto, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols since Barry Bonds retired (and Maikel Franco, once, because there is always an outlier).
Is it something the Giants will consider?
“Could be,” Kapler said. “We haven’t been passive when it comes to intentional walks. Should the situation arise, we’ll do what we need to do. We’ve talked about it a little bit.”
The free pass has fallen out of favor in the modern game. Intentional walks are being issued this season at their lowest rate on record, since the stat began being tracked in 1955. But the Giants have shown no hesitation under Kapler to utilize them when appropriate: they rank seventh in the majors this season, with 14. (The Angels, perhaps witnessing their effect firsthand, have handed out 30, 10 more than any other team.)
Asked earlier this season why he opted not to intentionally walk Max Muncy, who has historically torched the Giants like Ohtani has the entire league this year, Kapler said they had no “hard and fast rules” on when to hold up four fingers but that “we especially like it if there’s a really dangerous hitter without a dangerous hitter behind him.”
That, basically, is what Blue Jays third baseman told manager Dave Schneider in the dugout during one of their games against the Angels last week, after Ohtani slugged his 39th homer of the season (he has since reached 40). Even novice lip readers could pick up Chapman’s words, caught on camera: “Why did we pitch to him? He’s the only (expletive) guy on the team that can hit!”
Giants starter Ross Stripling, teammates with Chapman for the past two-and-a-half years in Toronto, holds a different view after the Angels’ moves at the trade deadline, adding C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk from Colorado. It has been Cron hitting behind Ohtani in six of their seven games since acquiring him.
“My teammate was Chapman, who blew Schneids for throwing to him,” Stripling said, “but I don’t necessarily agree with what Chapman said as far as he’s the only guy that can hit in that lineup. It’s not necessarily like you’re walking Shohei to face a pitcher. It’s more complicated than that.
“I think Shohei, also, he’ll chase things out of the zone. He wants to hit. He’s a phenomenal hitter. I think you can pitch smartly to him and go to safer zones and keep the ball in the yard. If it’s like two outs, nobody on, I don’t think it makes sense to intentionally walk him. But you can always pitch him extra careful.”
Bonds set the record for walks in a season with 232 in 2004, a staggering 120 of them intentionally.
Ohtani has been put on base intentionally 51 times in his career, though his 48 since 2021 lead the majors.
It’s not such a far cry to describe Ohtani’s season as “Bondsian.” OPS+ measures a hitters overall performance, neutralized against ballparks, against the league, where 100 is the average. Ohtani’s mark of 188 this season would be the seventh-highest of Bonds’ career — equal to his 1996 and 2000 seasons — a figure that has been reached only six times over a full season since Bonds retired.
“He’s putting up Barry Bonds numbers right now,” catcher Blake Sabol said, unprompted. “With (Mike) Trout out of the lineup, it’s a little bit like, you go down their order and you’re like, ‘That’s the guy I don’t want to face.’ If there’s situations that come up that warrant a walk rather than letting him swing it, I’m sure Kap will make that decision.”
It does raise the question, though: Don’t the natural competitive instincts required to make it to the major leagues conflict with the idea of avoiding the battle?
“Yes and no,” Stripling said. “It’s a little bit like the opener mentality, where it’s 100% the right call … but it’s also inherently the front office and the coaching staff saying, ‘We don’t think you can get this guy out.’ It’s like the devil and the angel on your shoulder, so it depends on where you are mentally as a competitor.”
Starter Alex Cobb, a former teammate of Ohtani’s, gave a quick and concise answer.
“No, no,” he said. “When Shohei’s up, it depends on what the situation is, but if it’s second and third with two outs and the game’s on the line, you understand that.”