MIAMI — The singular delight of October hardball has never graced this venue, but at least the magic of Shohei Ohtani has.
Since opening in 2012, Miami’s loanDepot Park has hosted 1,014 regular-season contests. And yet, besides the temporary abodes in Sacramento and Tampa, it is the only active MLB ballpark that has never hosted a postseason game.
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And because the perpetually rebuilding Marlins are, well, perpetually rebuilding, this futuristic, South Florida colossus quite often has fewer than 10,000 souls under its retractable roof. It is, save for the electrifying atmosphere of the World Baseball Classic, the echoey, tensionless home of low-stakes baseball.
Except, that is, when Ohtani comes to town.
On Monday, the Dodgers’ DH went deep in Miami for the fifth time in just six career games there. His fifth-inning shot on a piped Sandy Alcantara heater was blistered into the Los Angeles bullpen at a whopping 117.9 mph, making it the hardest hit ball of his season and the hardest hit home run in MLB so far this year.
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That two-run laser gave the defending champs a 5-1 lead, a lead they kept safe en route to a 7-4 victory. It was their eighth win in their past nine games, and Ohtani, once again, was at the center of the action.
“Really good memories, just with the accomplishments last year and playing in the WBC,” Ohtani told reporters after the game, through interpreter Will Ireton. “You know, we had a really good game today as well. So, really, this is one of my favorite stadiums.”
Yes, it is exceedingly bizarre that many of the brightest moments from the sport’s brightest star have taken place here, in a building that feels more like an abandoned Chernobyl aquatic center than a professional sports venue. A reported 15,395 attended Monday’s game, marking the largest weekday crowd of the Marlins’ season thus far. The atmosphere was a far cry from that of Ohtani’s home park, as the second and third decks at loanDepot were almost completely vacant, a product of Miami’s annual doormat status.
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For context, the Marlins drew 40,097 total fans last weekend for a three-game set against the Athletics. The Dodgers had an announced attendance of 47,192 for their most recent home game (which happened to be against Miami). It’s another sign of the enormous canyon between these two organizations, which sit at opposite ends of baseball’s financial spectrum. The Marlins currently have a payroll around $69 million, while the big-spending Dodgers are well above the $450 million mark between contracts and luxury-tax payments.
None of that was going through the mind of Ohtani — he of the heavily deferred $700 million contract — on Monday. The global superstar’s magnificent exploits in this most unfitting setting have become an unavoidable part of his legend. During the 2023 WBC, Ohtani delivered back-to-back iconic performances to carry Japan to its third title. In the semifinal, he cranked a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth inning to spearhead a magnificent comeback vs. Mexico, and then, famously, he closed out the final with a strikeout of then-Angels teammate Mike Trout.
Last September, Ohtani turned in perhaps the single greatest offensive game in MLB history. The three-time MVP entered a Sept. 19 contest against the Marlins with 48 home runs and 49 steals, seeking to become baseball’s first 50/50 player. Always the showman, Ohtani went 6-for-6 that day, with three homers and two steals.
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And on Monday, in his first game at “The Depot” since that history-making afternoon, Ohtani continued his reign of Dade County dominance. He now has a preposterous .370/.433/1.000 batting line in Miami. The home run off Alcantara, like many of Ohtani’s home runs, was awe-inspiring, oooooh-inducing. The sound was sharp, head-turning and immediate, like a whip cracking off the surface of a lake.
“I’m sure [his] velo helped with my exit velo,” Ohtani explained humbly after the game through Ireton when asked how it felt to connect with a ball so squarely. “And you know, I was glad that I was able to do it again.”
Compared to his previous Miami achievements, Ohtani’s two-run shot against a lowly Marlins team on a Monday in May carries much less dramatic heft or narrative pizazz. On this day, there were no records broken or plateaus reached or trophies raised.
Just a generational talent doing his thing in a stadium that has somehow become his personal baseballing playground.
This news was originally published on this post .
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