Nationals' James Wood ties Shohei Ohtani for lead in crazy MLB stat

Billy Heyen

Nationals' James Wood ties Shohei Ohtani for lead in crazy MLB stat image

Washington Nationals rising superstar James Wood doesn't get cheated.

When he hits home runs, he hits them.

That was true Thursday when he destroyed a walk-off homer, the first of his career, to beat the Colorado Rockies and snap the Nats' 11-game skid.

It was the 11th homer Wood has hit this year of greater than 110 miles per hour in exit velocity.

That total ties Dodgers legend Shohei Ohtani for the 2025 MLB lead, according to MLB Network's Sarah Langs.

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It's a remarkable feat, really. For one, Wood has hit six fewer homers than Ohtani, which means that more of his HRs are hit at that massive exit velocity.

It's also only Wood's second year in the majors, and his first full season. Yet the 6-foot-7 stud already looks legitimately like one of the most dangerous hitters on the planet.

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His home runs are beautiful sights, laser beams that soar on a frozen rope beyond the fence. He has no problem hitting them out to dead center or even the other way, because he stays through the baseball so well and simply hits it so dang hard.

It's never bad to hang out on a leaderboard with Ohtani, and it's just one more reminder of how special Wood really is.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle