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He led the league with 54 home runs, 130 RBIs, a 1.036 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, and that doesn’t tell half of the story.

Could the man with arguably the highest expectations in baseball history actually exceed them?

In being named the National League most valuable player on Thursday — becoming only the second player to win an MVP in both leagues — Ohtani completed a summer decorated with an even higher honor.

Yet through it all he kept swinging, slugging seven home runs with a 1.017 OPS in the first 32 games.

On Aug. 23 against the Tampa Bay Rays, needing one home run to become the sixth person in the 40-homer, 40-steal club, Ohtani did it with a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning.