The difficulty of being a two-way player is not only physical.

It is informational.

Before Shohei Ohtani, no one had truly done what he was attempting at the professional level. There was no manual. No proven blueprint for how to adjust when things went wrong.

In 2015, his third season in Japan, Ohtani dominated as a pitcher — 15 wins, a 2.24 ERA, and the pitching Triple Crown. But as a hitter, he struggled. His batting average hovered around .200, and he hit only five home runs.

For a designated hitter, those numbers were not enough. His spot in the lineup was often given to a hotter bat.

The conventional solution for a hitter in a slump is simple: swing more. Spend hours in the cage. Grind through repetition.

But Ohtani faced a unique problem.

If he swung the bat for three or four extra hours and it negatively affected his pitching mechanics or physical condition, that would undermine what was already working.

He had to ask a different question.

“Would more practice fix it? Or could a shift in mindset change my condition?”

Instead of increasing volume, he experimented with restraint.

He stopped swinging the bat in practice.

It was not laziness. It was a test.

The following season, Ohtani hit 22 home runs and batted over .300, reclaiming his impact as a hitter while maintaining excellence on the mound.

Sometimes growth does not come from doing more.

It comes from doing differently.

Source

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

Shohei Ohtani: Baseball Chronicle I (Japan Edition 2013–2018), p.187