Shohei Ohtani Joins the 40-40 Club With a Walk-Off Grand Slam

On August 23, 2024, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers became the sixth player in major league history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. He reached the milestone in the most dramatic fashion possible, swiping his 40th base in the fourth inning and then launching a walk-off grand slam for his 40th home run to beat the Tampa Bay Rays.

The grand slam came off Rays left-hander Colin Poche in the bottom of the ninth. Ohtani drove a 389-foot shot over the wall in right-center field, clearing the bases and sending Dodger Stadium into pandemonium. It was his first career walk-off home run, and it arrived at the exact moment he joined one of baseball's most exclusive statistical clubs.

Ohtani reached 40-40 faster than any player before him. He needed just 126 games, shattering the previous pace set by Alfonso Soriano, who took 147 games to accomplish the feat in 2002. The other members of the 40-40 club are Jose Canseco (1988), Barry Bonds (1996), Alex Rodriguez (1998), and Ronald Acuna Jr. (2023).

What made Ohtani's 2024 season even more remarkable was that he was doing it as a designated hitter. A torn UCL suffered in 2023 kept him off the mound for the entire season. Without his pitching to captivate audiences, Ohtani answered with the most prolific hitting and baserunning season of his career. He would go on to finish 2024 with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases, becoming the first player ever to reach 50-50.

The walk-off grand slam on August 23 was the signature moment of that run. Ohtani had arrived in Los Angeles as the most expensive free agent in baseball history, signing a ten-year, $700 million contract. On that Friday night, he delivered a scene that justified every dollar.