What will decide heavyweight MVP race between Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong?

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DENVER –– This year, they’ve been the two best players in baseball.

And this week, they’ve traded MVP-race blows even from 1,000 miles away.

Punch: On Monday night, Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a leadoff home run for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. 

Counter-punch: Hours later, Shohei Ohtani went deep in back-to-back at-bats for the Dodgers at Coors Field in Denver.

Punch: Ohtani would go on to record a season-high four hits in the Dodgers’ 11-5 win over the Rockies.

Counter-punch: Crow-Armstrong would do the same, only with the exclamation mark of a walk-off homer in the Cubs’ extra-innings 7-5 victory.

Punch: Crow-Armstrong hit another leadoff homer in another Cubs win on Tuesday, helping him maintain an edge over Ohtani in long balls, wins-above-replacement, and the all-encompassing metric of wRC+.

Counter-punch: Ohtani went deep himself later in the Dodgers’ Tuesday night victory, keeping him above Crow-Armstrong in batting average, OPS, RBIs and a different all-encompassing metric of OPS+.

In a riveting two-man bout with little obvious separation, it all served as a reminder that this year’s neck-and-neck MVP race is on pace to go the distance.

“I think it’s great for baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “that Pete’s made it a race.”

Indeed, earlier this season, Ohtani seemed to be running away with his fifth career MVP.

Not only was he still one of the best hitters in the sport, but he had returned from a second-career Tommy John surgery as one of its most dominant pitchers as well.

Through play on June 3, his .941 OPS ranked third in the majors (to go along with a .301 batting average, 10 home runs, and 33 RBIs) while his 0.74 pitching ERA was nearly twice as good as any one else with at least 10 starts.

Crow-Armstrong, on the other hand, entered June 3 with a .242 batting average, .718 OPS and only seven home runs. At that point, some sportsbooks had his MVP odds as long as 100-to-1.

Over the following five weeks, however, the fabric of the race fundamentally changed.

Ohtani developed a knee injury that first hampered his pitching (he had a 4.38 ERA over his next four starts) and has subsequently kept him off the mound since July 3.

Crow-Armstrong, meanwhile, went on an almost incomprehensible 32-game tear, in which he batted .392, belted 14 home runs and effectively caught up with Ohtani in season-long offensive production.

Since then, the two have continued to boast nearly identical hitting numbers: Entering Wednesday, Ohtani was slashing .294/.390/.558 with 30 home runs and 80 RBIs, to Crow-Armstrong’s marks of .282/.381/.555 with 31 home runs and 79 RBIs.

Because of that, the MVP discourse has revolved around the value of their other contributions: Ohtani’s pitching compared to Crow-Armstrong’s defense and baserunning.

Crow-Armstrong has been the first to acknowledge the unique difficulty of Ohtani’s two-way role (joking on multiple occasions that, if he really wants to win an MVP, he should get in the pitching lab himself).

However, Ohtani’s limited availability on the mound has transformed the conversation.

For as well as he pitched during the first half of the season, after all, Ohtani still only accrued 85 ⅔ innings. Crow-Armstrong, conversely, has played a premium defensive spot in center field every day, and done so at a level that (according to publicly available metrics, at least) has been unmatched by any player, at any position, in the majors this year. He also ranks second in the NL with 31 stolen bases (Ohtani, in part because of his pitching and knee injury, has only swiped seven).

That’s why Crow-Armstrong has a notable lead in combined WAR, according to Fangraphs, up 8.4 to 7.0 on Ohtani entering Wednesday.

It’s also why, over the final month and a half of this season, Ohtani’s ability to return to the Dodgers’ rotation could play a critical factor in the MVP race –– even if he’s unlikely to get stretched back out for full-length starts.

This could all be rendered moot, of course, if either player slumps down the stretch. 

Perhaps, in Crow-Armstrong’s case, the award could also be clinched if he becomes just the seventh player ever with a 40-homer, 40-steal season (he reached the 30/30 mark with his walk-off blast on Monday).

“He is earning the praise,” Roberts said Tuesday. “I think he plays a fantastic center field. He’s put up tremendous numbers.”

But then, the Dodgers skipper highlighted another potential factor in his superstar’s favor. 

“I honestly do think that it’s going to make Shohei even better, too,” he insisted, “to have someone pushing him.”

For now, it all adds to the intrigue of an unexpectedly close MVP battle. 

Every day, a new punch seems to be thrown. Every at-bat, the balance of power is capable of shifting. And barring an unlikely knockout blow, it could be setting up for a fascinating split decision.