Shohei Ohtani’s 2025 Home Run Numbers, and What to Expect From Him in 2026

Shohei Ohtani hit 55 home runs in 2025, the most of his career, and did it in the same season he came back from elbow surgery to pitch again. He still did not win the home run title. That is the kind of year it was in the National League.

Key Takeaways

• Ohtani hit a career-high 55 home runs, breaking his own mark of 54 and setting a Los Angeles Dodgers franchise record.
• He finished second in the NL by a single home run, losing a third straight title to Kyle Schwarber’s 56.
• He led the league with a 1.014 OPS and 146 runs while returning to the mound for 14 starts, striking out 62 with a 2.87 ERA.
• The season brought a fourth MVP award, his third in a row, and all four have been unanimous.
• Through early August 2026 he is at 24 home runs in 105 games — a pace of roughly 37 over a full season, below the 42 to 48 most preseason projections expected.

Ohtani’s 2025 Season by the Numbers

Category	2025
Home runs	55 (2nd in NL)
Batting average	.282
On-base percentage	.392
Slugging percentage	.622
OPS	1.014 (1st in NL)
Runs	146 (1st in NL)
RBIs	102
Stolen bases	20
Plate appearances	727
Starts / innings	14 / 47
Strikeouts / ERA / FIP	62 / 2.87 / 1.90

The 55 home runs did two things at once: broke his own career high of 54 from 2024, and set a franchise record for a Dodgers organization that has been playing baseball since 1883.

What it did not do was win him a home run title. Schwarber hit 56. Ohtani’s bid for a third consecutive crown died by one swing.

The rest of the offensive line explains why pitchers stopped giving him anything to hit. A .392 on-base percentage and .622 slugging produced a league-best 1.014 OPS, and his 146 runs also led the NL. He added 102 RBIs and 20 stolen bases.

Then there is the part no one else on the leaderboard was doing. Ohtani did not pitch at all in 2024 while rehabbing his right elbow. In 2025 he was back on the mound for 14 starts and 47 innings, striking out 62 with a 2.87 ERA and a 1.90 FIP.

Reaching 55 home runs and 55 strikeouts in the same season is a combination no player in MLB history has posted, for the obvious reason that almost no one has ever tried. The voters responded: a fourth MVP, his third straight, and — as with the first three — a unanimous one.

The season also pushed his career total to 280 home runs, 202nd on MLB’s all-time list and, more to the point, the most ever by a Japanese-born player. Hideki Matsui’s 175 had been the standard.

Three Home Runs That Defined Ohtani’s 2025

No. 55: The Last Day of the Regular Season

Sept. 28, 2025, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, the final game of the regular season. Dodgers up four, two outs in the seventh, Mariners left-hander Gabe Speier on the mound with a fastball that caught too much of the plate.

Ohtani hit it 412 feet to left-center at 109.5 mph off the bat. The solo shot broke his own career high and the Dodgers’ franchise record in one swing.

The detail that made it: he did it in an opposing ballpark, and the Seattle crowd broke into MVP chants anyway.

The ball was caught by Torey Jelenic, a 36-year-old Boeing engineer and lifelong Mariners fan, who told reporters afterward how much it meant to have come away with an Ohtani ball. Estimates put its market value in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

NLCS Game 4: Three Home Runs and 10 Strikeouts

Oct. 17, 2025, against the Milwaukee Brewers, in a performance that had no precedent.

Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with a home run. He hit another in the fourth. In the seventh he hit a third, this one 446 feet and out of the stadium entirely.

He was also pitching. Six and a third innings, two hits, no runs, 10 strikeouts.

No player in MLB history had ever hit three home runs and struck out 10 batters in the same game. It closed out the series, sent the Dodgers to the World Series, earned Ohtani NLCS MVP, and was singled out by MLB as one of the defining moments of the 2025 season.

World Series Game 3: 18 Innings Against Toronto

Oct. 27, 2025. Six hours and 39 minutes, 18 innings, the longest game of the World Series.

Ohtani finished with four hits and three RBIs. He homered off Max Scherzer in the third for his seventh career postseason home run, then hit a game-tying shot in the seventh for his eighth.

Two home runs plus two doubles gave him four extra-base hits in a World Series game — the second time that has happened, and the first since 1906, a gap of 119 years. He also reached base nine times, an MLB postseason record.

Toronto’s eventual solution was to stop pitching to him. From his fifth plate appearance on, he was intentionally walked four consecutive times.

Freddie Freeman ended it with a walk-off home run in the 18th.

How Many Home Runs Will Ohtani Hit in 2026?

The preseason consensus was that the number would come down from 55, and the reasoning was sound: he was going to pitch more.

In 2025 the Dodgers managed his workload carefully — 14 starts, 47 innings — because it was his first year back from elbow surgery. That restraint was never going to last. Through early August 2026 he has already made 14 starts and thrown 85 2/3 innings, nearly double last year’s total at the same point.

More pitching means fewer plate appearances. Ohtani came to the plate 727 times in 2025; days he starts, and often the days after, are days he may not hit. There is also the physical toll, which is harder to quantify but real — sustaining two workloads at once means neither gets his full reserves.

The counterargument was that his swing keeps improving, and that a hitter this efficient can produce home runs on a reduced diet of at-bats. Most preseason projections landed between 42 and 48.

The actual pace is lower than that. Through early August he has 24 home runs in 105 games while hitting .291 — roughly 37 over a full season.

Health and the Dodgers’ needs will decide where it finishes. Neither changes the standing fact: he remains one of the most feared hitters in baseball.

The Sluggers Chasing Ohtani in the Home Run Race

One clarification before the names. Cal Raleigh and Aaron Judge play in the American League, so neither can take a home run title away from Ohtani. Only Schwarber is a direct rival for the NL crown.

Kyle Schwarber

The Philadelphia Phillies slugger won the 2025 NL home run title with 56, edging Ohtani by one, and added the RBI crown with 132.

His power is the blunt-instrument kind. On Aug. 28, 2025, he hit four home runs in a single game, the 21st player in MLB history to do it. He also hit 23 home runs off left-handed pitching, the most ever by a left-handed hitter in a season.

He hit .240, which undersells him — a .365 on-base percentage and .563 slugging produced a .928 OPS. He struck out 197 times but also drew 108 walks.

After the season he signed a five-year, $150 million extension with Philadelphia. At 33, he should have several more years at this level.

Cal Raleigh

The Seattle Mariners catcher hit 60 home runs in 2025 to win the AL title, becoming the seventh player in MLB history to reach 60.

He did it as a catcher, which had never been done. Catchers spend nine innings crouching, absorbing foul tips and collisions; the position is understood to be where offense goes to erode. Raleigh hit 60 anyway.

He is a switch-hitter, and productive from both sides — his 60 blew past the previous switch-hitter record of 54, set by Mickey Mantle. He also hit .247 with 125 RBIs and a .948 OPS.

On Sept. 24, 2025, he hit Nos. 59 and 60 in the same game, and the Mariners clinched their first division title since 2001. In March of that year, at 28, he had signed a six-year, $105 million extension.

Aaron Judge

The New York Yankees captain hit 53 home runs in 2025, second in the AL. It was his second straight 50-homer season, making him the seventh player in MLB history to do that.

The separator is that he does it while hitting for average. He batted .331 in 2025 to win the first batting title of his career, with a 1.145 OPS and 114 RBIs.

At 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, he generates force that has no real comparison in the sport. He played 152 games in 2025 and won his third MVP, his second in a row.

He is 34 and showing no decline. In March 2026 he captained Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, leading them to the final, where they lost to Venezuela 3-2.

Three sluggers, one of them in Ohtani’s league. The NL race runs through Philadelphia.