Ranking the three best Shohei Ohtani moments of his MVP season

2) Best Shohei Ohtani moments: Takedown of the World Series champions (6/15/23)

The Angels headed to Arlington for what felt like a massive four-game series in mid-June. The Angels had done well against the bad teams but struggled against the good ones. Texas was one of, if not the best team in the AL for much of the first half and the Angels were looking to prove that they could compete with them.

This series wound up being the Angels best moment as a team as they took three of four on the road from the eventual champs. Several of their players really impressed on a big stage, but none shined brighter than Shohei Ohtani.

Shohei's first three games of the series were dominant. He had six hits in ten at-bats including three home runs and six RBI. Additionally, Ohtani had drawn five walks in those first three games in which the Angels won two. As fun as those three games were, Ohtani had a lot on his plate still to help the Angels win the series.

Ohtani was tasked with starting the finale of the series against Rangers ace Nathan Eovaldi. Oh the mound, Ohtani was as good if not better than Texas' right-hander, delivering six innings of two run ball despite not having his dominant stuff. Ohtani only struck out three, but willed his way through the stacked Rangers order. It was a fairly quiet night for Ohtani at the dish before he came up against Rangers left-hander Brock Burke in the top of the eighth.

With the Angels ahead 3-2, Ohtani went deep yet again, homering to the opposite field to give the Halos a much-needed insurance run. He delivered a quality start, reached base in three of his four plate appearances, and hit a mammoth home run to help ice the series. It was a huge momentum-shifting series win for this Angels team at the time and it couldn't have happened without Ohtani.