{"id":686486,"date":"2026-06-05T18:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/686486\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T18:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:38:16","slug":"otherworldly-ohtani-strikes-again-plus-i-went-down-my-second-rabbit-hole-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/686486\/","title":{"rendered":"Otherworldly Ohtani strikes again. Plus: I went down my second rabbit hole this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Windup Newsletter \u26be | This is The Athletic\u2019s MLB<\/a> newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

If you see magic for enough days in a row, sometimes you forget it\u2019s magic. So, let\u2019s pause and acknowledge what we\u2019re seeing from Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n

Plus: We\u2019ve got Ken Rosenthal on the Padres\u2019 deadline plans, a deep dive into why some teams get injured more and [deep sigh] I found another rabbit hole. I\u2019m Levi Weaver \u2014 welcome to The Windup!<\/p>\n

WHAT?! Ohtani is just not normal<\/p>\n

When watching Ohtani, human nature can\u00a0almost trick me into forgetting just how distinct a player I\u2019m seeing.<\/p>\n

Take last night, for example: Ohtani reached base five times (3-for-4 with two walks) while pitching six innings, allowing no runs on two hits and one walk and striking out six in a 7-0 win. Further, his ERA after 10 starts is now 0.74.\u00a0According to\u00a0MLB\u2019s Sarah Langs<\/a>, that\u2019s the third-best such mark in MLB history, trailing just 2021 Jacob deGrom (0.56) and 1966 Juan Marichal (0.66).<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget: This is also the first player in MLB history to post a 50 HR\/50 stolen bases season. The guy who has led the sport in runs scored and total bases in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019re getting used to it, it\u2019s just so incredibly not normal.<\/p>\n

More Ohtani:\u00a0Elise Devlin tells us about\u00a0the system Ohtani has employed<\/a>\u00a0since high school to achieve his goals.<\/p>\n

Middle Relief: Can Padres be buyers after being bought?<\/p>\n

Today, we have an excerpt from Ken\u2019s\u00a0latest notes column<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill fail to hit to their accustomed levels, Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller might consider it futile to adopt his usual frenzied approach at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

But seriously, does anyone expect that out of the executive who gives the entire sport whiplash virtually every year?<\/p>\n

If anything, Preller could become even more dangerous once the Padres\u2019 $3.9 billion sale to Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, is finalized. At the past three deadlines, Preller operated with limited payroll flexibility. Some teams hear that Feliciano and Jones, while not yet approved, plan to grant him greater financial leeway.<\/p>\n

The Padres\u2019 farm system, depleted from all of Preller\u2019s wheeling and dealing, is the worst in baseball,\u00a0according to\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law<\/a>. But people seem to say that every year, and every year Preller comes up with prospects to trade.<\/p>\n

The bigger questions, perhaps, are whether the Padres will merit reinforcement at the deadline, and what their biggest needs might be.<\/p>\n

Somehow, the Padres are tied with the Cardinals for the first wild-card spot in the National League. With Tatis, Machado and Merrill all sporting OPSes below .700. With the offense through Tuesday ranked ahead only of the Royals in runs per game. With right-hander Yu Darvish spending all season on the restricted list while recovering from major elbow surgery, and with Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove still not close to returning from injuries.<\/p>\n

Tatis has been hot of late, but complementary players such as Gavin Sheets, Miguel Andujar and Ty France have been among the Padres\u2019 biggest offensive contributors. If Machado and Merrill return to form, the team\u2019s lineup should be in relatively decent shape.<\/p>\n

Then again, another outfielder could help. Ram\u00f3n Laureano struggled before going on the injured list with a hip issue. Nick Castellanos\u00a0was designated for assignment<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday after batting .191 with a .560 OPS in 122 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

The bigger void, though, almost certainly will be in the rotation, which the Padres have been piecing together behind righties Michael King and Randy V\u00e1squez all season.<\/p>\n

Ouch: A deep dive on injuries<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often wondered why some organizations seem to lose more players to injury, while others \u2026 well, injuries happen everywhere. Nobody is immune.<\/p>\n

But some teams are hurt more than others, right?<\/p>\n

Today, we get a deep dive from Eno Sarris and Britt Ghiroli, and yes: The Yankees, Mets and Orioles consistently\u00a0lose more player time to injury than other teams<\/a>.\u00a0But the reason is not as simple as an incompetent training staff.<\/p>\n

There are many factors, it turns out: financial flexibility, the willingness to take on injury risk and even a team\u2019s tendency to embrace (or eschew) advancements in tech, data and analytics that will benefit a player\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

Youth sports are also a factor, as kids are exposed to advanced training early.\u00a0More than 50 percent of Tommy John surgeries are now done on players under the age of 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a sport that has been in an injury crisis for the better part of a decade, the story is a fascinating look at the various factors that could be contributing to it. I recommend the read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another Rabbit Hole: What\u2019s the most common uniform number?\u00a0<\/p>\n

This started on Tuesday night, watching Dustin May (No. 3) pitch to Joc Pederson (No. 3), both wearing a No. 4 patch (Lou Gehrig Day). I recalled that Pederson had worn No. 4 last year\u00a0and that May used to wear 85, which is oddly retired in St. Louis for a former owner.<\/p>\n

So of course my brain\u2019s next question was: \u201cI wonder which uniform number has been worn by the most players?\u201d Maybe\u00a0Ted Lasso was wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I had to know.<\/p>\n

Step one: Is this Google-able?\u00a0Sorta. Ultimately, it did give me the right answer. But the link was more than 10 years (and 22,000 MLB games) old. I had to fact-check it myself.<\/p>\n

Step two: Build a spreadsheet.\u00a0You can see the final product here<\/a>, and if you\u2019re curious about the methodology, there\u2019s a second tab with notes. It took two days, so while I worked, I had more questions \u2014 about retired numbers!<\/p>\n

Step three: fun facts!<\/p>\n

The most commonly\u00a0retired\u00a0number \u2014\u00a0not counting Jackie Robinson\u2019s 42 \u2014 is 10.
\nOf the numbers between 1 and 50, only two have never been retired by any team: 38 and 48.
\nThe Marlins are the only team with no retired numbers. They once had No. 5 retired for their first team president, but un-retired it for Logan Morrison (which is very funny to me).
\nSpeaking of which: Four numbers have been retired without a player ever wearing them. Two are managers \u2014\u00a0Don Zimmer (66, Rays) and Casey Stengel (37, Mets) \u2014\u00a0one is August Busch Jr.\u2019s No. 85 in St. Louis, and the other is No. 33 in Pittsburgh, retired for Honus Wagner, since that\u2019s the number he used as a coach (when he played, there were no uniform numbers).
\nAnd then there\u2019s the opposite of that: The most commonly issued number in Phillies history is No. 34, which has been issued to\u00a063 different players. It\u2019s also now retired, for Roy Halladay.
\nThe most-issued team-number combo of all time is: \u201cYankees, No. 38,\u201d which has been worn by 75 players, from Marius Russo in 1939 to Devin Williams last year.
\nMost cases of a player being the only player in team history to wear a number are in those lineman-esque 70s-through-90s numbers. But the lowest (non-zero) number to have been worn by one person in team history was \u2026 Lou Gehrig\u2019s No. 4 with the Yankees.
\nSpeaking of the Yankees, they not only have the most retired numbers, but they\u2019ve also used more of the 1-100 options than any other team. The only number they haven\u2019t issued is No. 87.<\/p>\n

And of course,\u00a0the answer to the original question:\u00a0The most commonly issued number in baseball history is \u2026 drumroll, please \u2026<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41\ud83e\udd41<\/p>\n

\u2026 22,\u00a0worn by 1,103 players (No. 12 is close at 1,098).<\/p>\n

Bonus: The number that has been issued to the fewest players? 1\/8, which was\u00a0issued only to Eddie Gaedel<\/a>\u00a0of the St. Louis Browns in 1951 (meaning it beat 86, 89 and 91\u00a0by 49 years<\/a>). But the least-frequent\u00a0whole\u00a0number is now 95, which has been worn by just five players in MLB history, from Takahito Nomura (2002 Brewers) to Josh Ekness this year with the Marlins.<\/p>\n

Handshakes and High Fives<\/p>\n

Cristopher S\u00e1nchez\u00a0finally allowed a run<\/a>\u00a0after 50 2\/3 scoreless innings. It\u2019s the longest by any left-handed pitcher, and the fifth-longest in MLB history.<\/p>\n

Aaron Judge underwent more tests on his right rib (bone bruise). The results? He\u00a0needs even more imaging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Rob Manfred called the league\u2019s current luxury tax system a \u201cfailure.\u201d But his\u00a0tune has changed in recent years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Pirates had an 8-3 lead in the seventh inning in Houston. They lost 11-9. These highlights<\/a>\u00a0are made better by the person screaming as each pitch is thrown.<\/p>\n

The Padres are 2-8 in their last 10 games, and the\u00a0Nick Castellanos experiment is over<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The \u201cThree Best Leaders \u2026\u201d series\u00a0continues with LaTroy Hawkins<\/a>, who spent 21 years in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t make the Red Sox not regret trading Kyle Harrison, but Caleb Durbin appears to be having a\u00a0breakthrough with a new private hitting instructor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most-clicked in our last Windup:\u00a0We have a repeat winner: The league\u2019s first\u00a03-6-3-6 double play<\/a>\u00a0since 1972.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Windup Newsletter \u26be | This is The Athletic\u2019s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,363,99],"class_list":["post-686486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}