2021 AL MVP? Inside the year of Los Angeles Angels’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani

It was a performance unlike any we’ve witnessed in our lifetimes.

Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels — who is expected to take home the American League Most Valuable Player trophy — starred both on the mound and at the plate in 2021. As a starting pitcher, Ohtani posted a 9-2 record with 156 strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA in 23 appearances. As a hitter, he slugged 46 homers, drove in 100 runs and posted a .965 OPS.

On top of that, he changed the very rules of Major League Baseball, when the league allowed him to start the All-Star Game both as a pitcher and a designated hitter.

Here are a few of our favorite stories from The Year of Ohtani.

Ohtani, 27, is among the four or five best in the world at two of the most celebrated acts in sports, throwing a baseball fast and hitting one far. He seems to exist somewhere above the game, not in an arrogant sense but in an almost ethereal one, and this season, for all its historic volume, feels like an ongoing series of grace notes. There are numbers, of course, that both numb and blow the mind — 45 homers, 24 stolen bases, 99 runs, 98 RBIs, 156 K’s in 130⅓ innings on the mound — but Ohtani’s season will live most indelibly not in data but in memory and anecdote.

“I always thought this was the real version of him,” said Angels second baseman David Fletcher, Ohtani’s closest friend on the team. “It’s taken a while to get to this point, but this is what me and a lot of other guys who have seen him over these last couple of years … I mean, I wouldn’t say expected, because how could you expect this? But we knew this was his potential.”

READ MORE: Shohei Ohtani has expanded what’s possible in baseball. Tim Keown, Sept. 29 »

On the mound

1. The 150th (Sept. 26)

Shohei Ohtani has struck out 150 batters.

He’s also hit 45 homers.

Shohei is one of a kind. pic.twitter.com/KcuWfvbvv6

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) September 26, 2021

Ohtani placed a 98-mph fastball…