MLB: Even by their lofty standards, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani had quite a week. Judge homered seven times in six games for the Yankees, including twice on Sunday to bring his season total to 51 entering Monday’s games. He was on pace to surpass 60 for the second time in three years, and his American League record of 62 in 2022 could very well fall. Ohtani became only the sixth player to reach 40 homers and 40 steals in a season, and he did it with over a week left in August. And in dramatic fashion — home run No. 40 was a walk-off grand slam for the Dodgers against Rays on Friday night. There’s never been a 50-50 player, but Ohtani clearly has a shot. Here are a couple more stats that underscore the historic nature of what Judge and Ohtani are doing: OPS+ is a stat that takes a player’s on-base and slugging percentages and compares them to the league average and factors in ballpark effects. Baseball Reference has Judge’s OPS+ at 230, with 100 being league average. Only three players (minimum 500 plate appearances) have finished a season with an OPS+ above 230: Barry Bonds (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004), Babe Ruth (1920, 1921 and 1923) and Ted Williams (1941 and 1957). Power-Speed Number was invented by Bill James as a way of condensing a player’s homers and steals into a single figure. The formula is actually pretty simple: 2(HR x SB)/(HR + SB). Right now Ohtani’s power-speed number is 40.5, which already puts him at No. 9 of all time for a single season. For a quarter-century, the record was 43.9 by Alex Rodriguez in 1998, but Ronald Acuña Jr. blew past that last year, hitting 41 homers with 73 steals for a power-speed number of 52.5. Judge leads the major leagues in home runs and RBIs (122) but his .333 average was 14 points behind the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. He also is not the only player with a Triple Crown shot this season. In the National League, the Braves’ Marcell Ozuna is in first place with a .305 average. He also was tied with Ohtani for the RBI lead at 94, and with 37 home runs, Ozuna was just four behind Ohtani. So it’s possible Ozuna could win the NL Triple Crown while trailing Judge in all three categories. Judge has been worth 9.4 wins above replacement in 129 games this season. Among non-pitchers, who holds the record for the highest WAR in a season while finishing with fewer than 130 games played? (Hint: The record is actually 9.4, so Judge would tie it if he ended his season now.)
Royals: Bobby Witt Jr. homered leading off the eighth inning to break a tie as the Kansas City Royals pulled closer to Cleveland in the AL Central with a 4-3 victory over the Guardians in the opener of a day-night doubleheader Monday. Witt connected on a 0-1 pitch from rookie Hunter Gaddis (4-3), driving it 413 feet into the left-field bleachers for his 27th homer of the season — and his 11th in 34 games since the All-Star break. He came in batting .417 since the break, the fourth-highest average (with at least 125 at-bats) in the second half since World War II.