During his time with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Shohei Ohtani achieved double-digit wins and double-digit home runs in both his second and fourth seasons. Yet statistically, his strongest year as a pitcher was 2015 — his third season — when he won 15 games and captured the pitching Triple Crown.

But that same year, he struggled badly at the plate. He hit just .202 with five home runs.

Even manager Hideki Kuriyama began to worry that the two-way experiment might collapse.

After striking out four times in a single game, Ohtani was asked whether he had hit a “wall.”

His answer was calm:

“I didn’t feel like I hit a wall.”

Why?

“None of those strikeouts felt like the pitcher was simply better than me. The pitches I believed I could hit, I just didn’t. I took it as my form being off.”

This distinction matters.

If your ability is insufficient, the solution is long-term development. But if your ability exists and your performance drops, then the issue is condition — timing, rhythm, sharpness.

Condition can be restored.

Skill, once built, does not disappear overnight.

Ohtani believed that if he was only out of sync, then improvement was still within reach.

The following year, he hit 22 home runs and batted over .300, restoring his two-way dominance.

For him, slump did not equal limitation.

It meant adjustment.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese magazine published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Number 881, p.18