Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers Dominate ESPY Nominations

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The Los Angeles Dodgers and superstar Shohei Ohtani are poised to bring home more hardware in the 2026 ESPY Awards next month.

Ohtani has been nominated in three categories, and the Dodgers are up for Best Team, ESPN said in a news release.

Ohtani’s nominations are:

• Best Athlete, Men’s Sports
• Best Single-Game Performance
• Best MLB Player

Which Shohei Ohtani game was he nominated for?​

As you might have guessed, that single-game performance came in Game 4 of the 2025 National League Championship Series.

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Sep 10, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (17) smiles after he was awarded first base on catcher interference during the eighth inning against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

In that performance, he threw 10 strikeouts in six scoreless innings on the mound, and at the plate, he blasted three huge home runs.

It was perhaps the best single game of baseball ever played.

“It was the sort of game that happens in comic books, not real life — and it was a game that completed a championship series sweep and sent Los Angeles to its second consecutive World Series,” Jeff Passan wrote for ESPN. “It was the kind of night that leaves patrons elated they saw it and also just a little ruined because they know they’ll never see anything like it again. Everyone was a prisoner, captive to perhaps the greatest individual game in the quarter-million or so played over the last century and a half.”

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It was so good, in fact, that the Dodgers are commemorating it with two different bobbleheads.

Ohtani is also nominated for Best MLB Player, an honor he’s won the past five years in a row. The previous record for the award was four straight, held by both Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols.

He’s previously won the Best Athlete, Men’s Sports award once, in 2022 when he was still a member of the Los Angeles Angels.

Have the Dodgers won the Best Team ESPY before?​

Unlike Ohtani, the Dodgers are so far winless in the Best Team category.

To add insult to injury, the Houston Astros took the honor in 2018, the year after they bested the Dodgers in the World Series. That title was ultimately tarnished by the sign-stealing scandal.

Maybe back-to-back World Series titles won without a cheating scandal can secure the honor for the Boys in Blue.

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