The Dodgers on Friday kick off a three-game set against the Yankees in New York that may very well be a preview of this year's World Series. If Los Angeles is going to acquit themselves well against the American League's best team, it's going to require Shohei Ohtani to outperform his career numbers at Yankee Stadium.
Since Ohtani spent his first six seasons in the AL he has a decent sample size in the Bronx. In 13 games at Yankee Stadium he's hitting just .130 with a .245 on-base percentage and a .413 slugging percentage. He does have four home runs, but he's accumulated only six total hits in 46 at-bats.
There's some cause for optimism though since overall Ohtani hasn't been bad against the Yankees. In 23 games he has a .218 AVG and a .344 on-base percentage. Both of those numbers are well below his career marks, but not terrible given what he's done hitting for power against them.
Ohtani has a career .628 slugging percentage vs. the Yankees with nine home runs in those 23 games. That's a 63 homer pace over a full season. He also has three doubles and a triple against them, giving him 13 extra-base hits out of 17 total knocks.
If the Dodgers are going to keep their offensive momentum going after banging out 14 hits and 11 runs against the Pirates on Thursday, they'll need Ohtani to be much better at Yankee Stadium than he's been so far in his career.
