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          Ranking Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani's greatest hits -- and pitches -- of the 2021 MLB season

          Mary DeCicco/MLB Photos via Getty Images
          • Alden GonzalezSep 29, 2021, 06:45 AM ET
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              ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
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          It was early in the penultimate week of the regular season. The Los Angeles Angels were flailing toward the end of another disappointing campaign, and yet Joe Maddon seemed shocked at the suggestion that anybody but Shohei Ohtani could capture the American League's Most Valuable Player Award.

          "It's one of the best years -- maybe the best year, in the history of the game -- by a baseball player," Maddon, the Angels' manager, was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 21. "If that's not recognized independent of championships, then I don't know when it would be."

          Ohtani has done it all in 2021, at a simultaneous level that not even Babe Ruth ever reached. He has crushed monster home runs and uncorked devastating splitters, reared back for triple-digit fastballs and run fast enough to beat out ground balls to first base. Just as important: He has sustained a full season as a two-way player, captivating baseball fans all over the world with stirring performances both on the mound and in the batter's box.

          With the season nearing its conclusion, here's our running top-five lists of Ohtani's best moments -- on both sides -- this year.

          At the plate

          1. The game winner in Boston (May 16)

          The Angels were down a run, down to their last out and in the midst of a spiral, having lost 10 of their previous 13 games. They desperately needed a win, and up came Ohtani to make it happen.

          With two outs and Mike Trout on first base, Ohtani turned on a first-pitch, inside-corner fastball from Boston Red Sox closer Matt Barnes and skied one deep to right, hooking the baseball around the Pesky Pole for the two-run homer that won the Angels the game.

          Ohtani leads the majors in win probability added, and it's because of clutch moments like this one.

          2. The 451-foot grand entrance (April 4)

          The anticipation for Ohtani's start on the first Sunday of the season, in front of a national audience, was at a fever pitch. He would do so while serving as the Angels' No. 2 hitter, against one of baseball's best teams, for the first time in his career.

          Shortly after a scoreless top of the first as a pitcher, Ohtani settled into the batter's box against Chicago White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease. And on the first pitch he saw, he unleashed a 451-foot drive to right-center.

          3. The 40th (Aug. 18)

          In the top of the eighth, Ohtani came to bat with the Angels leading by only a run and unleashed a 430-foot, 110-mph rocket that went out for his major league-leading 40th home run this season -- the most ever by an Angels left-handed hitter, passing the 39 Reggie Jackson hit in 1982.

          In the bottom of the eighth, Ohtani returned to the mound and completed a masterful outing against the Detroit Tigers, who managed only one run in the game, struck out eight times and didn't draw a single walk against him.

          4. The high-ball homer (May 17)

          Here's another comp worth considering for Ohtani: Vladimir Guerrero, one of the most notorious bad-ball hitters in the game's history. On this night, Ohtani channeled his inner Guerrero by homering on a pitch that was 4.19 feet off the ground, making it the second-highest pitch to go out for a home run this season and the 12th-highest in the Statcast era, which dates to 2015.

          Even more impressive, however, is the range. That home run came three days after Ohtani extended his arms on a breaking pitch low and outside to basically flick the ball over Fenway Park's Green Monster in left field.

          5. The 470-foot moon shot (June 8)

          Ohtani set a career best with a 470-foot home run against Kansas City Royals lefty Kris Bubic -- a towering blast just to the right of the center-field batter's eye, roughly 20 rows up, on a hanging changeup. It was the longest home run by an Angels player since Trout in May 2019 and the longest from a lefty hitter off a lefty pitcher this season. It was also Ohtani's 17th home run of the season, one shy of the major league lead at the time.

          It also came three days after he clobbered a 436-foot shot for his 16th home run, which came one day after he struck out 10 batters without issuing a walk. Two innings after his 470-foot home run, Ohtani lined a 112.6 mph double. With that, Ohtani became the second Angels player -- along with retired catcher Chris Iannetta -- with multiple 111 mph-plus extra-base hits in a single game in the Statcast era.

          On the mound

          1. The 150th (Sept. 26)

          Ohtani placed a 98-mph fastball perfectly on the outside corner to end the third inning -- exemplifying a command that seemed to continually improve as the season wore on -- and recorded his 150th strikeout of 2021. This probably goes without saying, but Ohtani became the first player in history to record 150 strikeouts and hit 45 home runs (not to mention add at least 20 stolen bases) in a season.

          It was merely the fourth of 10 strikeouts in the Angels' home finale -- one that saw Ohtani pitch seven innings of one-run ball, lower his ERA to 3.18 and basically lock up the AL's MVP award. In an 11-start stretch since an ugly first inning at Yankee Stadium at the end of June, Ohtani has a 2.82 ERA with 73 strikeouts and nine walks in 70 1/3 innings.

          2. The high splitter (May 11)

          Ohtani usually buries his splitter well below the strike zone for punch-outs. But with two outs and none on in the seventh inning against Houston, he threw one up and in, and Astros center fielder Myles Straw clearly had no idea what to do with it.

          Straw swung right through it, capping one of Ohtani's best performances as a major league pitcher -- seven innings, one run, one walk and 10 strikeouts against a really good offense.

          3. The backdoor slider (April 26)

          Ohtani has been prone to some rough starts to his outings, but usually he'll settle into a groove thereafter. His April 26 start was a perfect example.

          Ohtani allowed four runs in the first inning, but after he helped tie the game in the top of the second, he went on to retire 12 of 13 Texas Rangers batters (eight on strikeouts). His command got increasingly better as that start went on, as evidenced by how perfectly he executed a backdoor slider to Brock Holt to end the fourth inning.

          4. The 96 on the black (June 4)

          As the summer progressed, Ohtani noticeably sacrificed a little velocity for better location, an adjustment that has taken him to another level as a pitcher. That was illustrated with the pitch above, a 96 mph fastball placed perfectly on the outside corner to record his fifth strikeout in the first two innings against the Mariners.

          Ohtani allowed only two runs in six innings that start, striking out 10 and -- most importantly -- walking zero.

          5. The bases-loaded splitter (April 20)

          Ohtani, previously dealing with blister issues, made his first start in 16 days and had noticeable command issues early on against Texas, issuing three consecutive walks in the first inning. But he escaped that bases-loaded jam with back-to-back strikeouts, the last one coming on a nasty splitter to Willie Calhoun that darted below the strike zone.

          Ohtani issued six walks and hit a batter through four innings, throwing only 37 of 80 pitches for strikes, but he somehow didn't give up any runs. That last pitch to Calhoun was a perfect example of why he's so hard to score against: His splitter is very good, and it's almost impossible to produce off him in two-strike counts. Opponents are hitting .087/.132/.102 against his splitter and .111/.167/.153 with two strikes.

          Only Ohtani could ...

          β€’ April 26 was the perfect encapsulation of Ohtani's sensational season. He took the mound that afternoon as the major league leader in home runs, making him the first starting pitcher to do so since Ruth in 1921. Through the first inning and a half in Arlington, Texas, Ohtani had accounted for all of the game's first eight runs, allowing four as a pitcher and either scoring or driving in the other four as an offensive player. He ultimately got the win as the pitcher and recorded two hits as a hitter -- on a 113.8 mph line drive and a 52-foot bunt.

          β€’ On May 11 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Ohtani became a three-way player. Maddon wanted to keep Ohtani's bat in the lineup for the later innings of a close game, so the star played some right field after he was done pitching and became just the third player to strike out 10 or more batters and then play the field at a different position since 1900, according to Elias Sports Bureau research. The last starting pitcher to both pitch and man right field: Harvey Haddix on Sept. 28, 1952. After the May 11 outing, Ohtani had accumulated 40 strikeouts through his first five starts. The only Angels pitcher with more than that? Nolan Ryan.

          β€’ April 4 was a date ripe for juicy Ohtani nuggets. By that point, Ohtani had already thrown the fastest pitch of any starting pitcher (100.6 mph) and had registered the hardest-hit home run by any player (115.2 mph off the bat). He also became the first starting pitcher to homer from the No. 2 spot of a lineup and the first since Ruth (1933) to homer from any of the first seven spots in a batting order. Before Ohtani, no American League pitcher had ever homered in the same game he pitched since the DH was instituted in 1973.

          β€’ Ohtani practically won a game by himself on July 2. He homered twice against the Baltimore Orioles, then came to bat with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth. He worked a walk, stole second base, was called back because of batter's interference, stole second again, then scored the winning run on a base hit to right -- on a ball that was hit 109 mph off the bat of Jared Walsh, then fielded cleanly by Orioles right fielder Ryan McKenna, who was playing shallow to prevent the winning run from scoring in the first place. Ohtani's foot came in right before the tag, then he raised both arms triumphantly.

          β€’ Heading into the final week of the season, Ohtani had hit the third-most home runs in the majors, had stolen more bases than all but eight players and ranked fifth in OPS, behind only Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr. In other words, he had put together an MVP-caliber offensive season. Then consider this: Among the 75 pitchers who had contributed at least 130 innings, Ohtani ranked 20th in ERA, 19th in WHIP and 10th in strikeout percentage. Maybe Maddon was on to something.