Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs overtook Shohei Ohtani for the National League OPS lead on Sunday, August 23, posting a .938 mark that edges the Dodgers superstar out of the top spot by roughly four-tenths of a percentage point. It is a tight margin, but a lead change at this stage of the 2026 regular season is meaningful — and for Dodgers fans, watching Ohtani slip from that perch is not a number to ignore.
Pete Crow-Armstrong Holds a .938 OPS, the Best Mark in the NL
The number is the story. A .938 OPS at any point in a season is elite production. It means Crow-Armstrong is getting on base at a high clip and doing serious damage when he makes contact. The Cubs outfielder, who is no longer a rookie — his eligibility expired after the 2024 season — has been one of the more productive hitters in the National League this year. His 2026 campaign stands clearly above his 2025 numbers, when he slashed .247/.287/.481 for a .768 OPS across 157 games. That is a jump of 170 OPS points from last season to where he sits right now, and that kind of leap demands attention.
What Ohtani Losing the NL OPS Lead Means for the Dodgers
From a Dodgers perspective, the relevant fact is simple: Ohtani was the NL OPS leader, and now he is not. The margin separating him from Crow-Armstrong is paper-thin — roughly 0.4 percent — which means Ohtani has not collapsed at the plate. He remains among the very best hitters in the league. But Crow-Armstrong has played himself into a position where his production, right now, is measurably better than Ohtani's by this particular measure.
That is worth acknowledging plainly. OPS is not the only way to evaluate a hitter, but it is one of the most comprehensive single-number snapshots available. When a player reaches .938, he is performing at a level that separates him from nearly everyone else in the game. Crow-Armstrong has earned that number. The Dodgers will want Ohtani to take it back.
How Crow-Armstrong Got Here
His 2025 baseline gives useful context. Crow-Armstrong hit 31 home runs, drove in 95 runs, stole 35 bases at an 81.4 percent success rate, and posted a .481 slugging percentage in his first full season as an established major leaguer. He also showed patience at the plate to varying degrees, walking 29 times against 155 strikeouts. The on-base percentage that season was .287 — functional but not a strength.
The .938 OPS he carries into late August 2026 indicates that at least one of those underlying numbers — on-base, slugging, or both — has improved significantly. Without a full 2026 slash line available, the exact mechanism of the jump is not verifiable here, but the composite number is official and confirmed as of August 23.
What Comes Next: A Tight Race With Real Stakes
The NL OPS lead changed hands on Sunday with about five weeks of regular season baseball remaining. That is enough time for the number to flip back, or for a third player to enter the conversation. Ohtani trails by less than half a percentage point, which means a single strong series could return him to the top spot.
For the Dodgers, the competitive angle is straightforward. Ohtani's individual production is tied directly to the lineup's ceiling. If he is producing at or near the top of the NL in OPS, the offense runs through him the way it is designed to. A lead change does not signal a problem — the margin is too small for that — but it is a data point worth tracking as the calendar moves toward October.
Crow-Armstrong, for his part, has now placed himself in the same sentence as Ohtani when it comes to the most productive hitters in the National League. That is where the 2026 regular season stands as of Sunday, August 23.
