Sports

Ohtani receives third Major League Baseball MVP Award

Nov 23 (NHK) - Japanese baseball superstar Ohtani Shohei has received his third MVP award in Major League Baseball and his first in the National League.

Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers was a unanimous MVP for the third time, receiving all 30 first-place votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Ohtani was unanimously voted the American League MVP in 2021 and 2023 when he played for the Los Angeles Angels.

This year, Ohtani became the first MLB player to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a single season. He is the first designated hitter to have won the award.

Ohtani played in 159 of his team's 162 games, the most he has ever played in a regular season, finishing with a .310 batting average, the second highest in the league, 54 homers and 130 RBIs.

His 59 stolen bases, the league's second most, and 134 runs, the league's most, both broke the former records by a Japanese player set by Suzuki Ichiro.

Ohtani also won the Hank Aaron Award, which honors the best hitter in each league, for the second year in a row. He has become the first player in MLB history to win the award in both the American and National leagues.

In the American League, Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees won the MVP award also by a unanimous vote. He finished the season with 58 homers, the highest number in both leagues.

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