PHOENIX — After his superstar two-way player hurled yet another gem, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts gave as spot-on a summation of Shohei Ohtani’s mentality as a pitcher as one could provide.

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“He’s literally trying to throw a shutout every time out there,” Roberts said after Wednesday night, when Ohtani whiffed six hitters over six innings, scattering two hits and walking one in his 10th start of the year.

One look at Ohtani’s stat line — and his remarkable 0.74 ERA — and you start to see Roberts’ point.

Aces are running wild in the National League this year, starting with Ohtani’s return to being a full-season starter. He is one of many top-of-the-line starters hurling their way into the Cy Young conversation. A dazzling May, where he allowed just three earned runs over 25 innings and limited the opposition to a .131/.223/.202 line has Ohtani firmly in the mix. But there are arguments to be made that for as dominating as Ohtani has been so far this season, Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez and Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski have been just as outstanding, if not more so.

Or as The Athletic’s Jayson Stark put it recently: “I still think this is shaping up as the greatest NL Cy Young race ever. And the spectacular May artistry of Sánchez, Misiorowski and Ohtani has just elevated that race to a whole ‘nother level.”

We are roughly one-third of the way through the season, and the race is indeed on. Several hurlers are rivaling Ohtani for the league’s top pitching honor. Sánchez saw his streak of 50 2/3 scoreless innings come to an end Wednesday, but he leads the National League in innings pitched (86 1/3) and lowest home run rate (0.313). No starting pitcher has a more powerful fastball than Misiorowski, as evidenced by his 99.5 mile per hour average velocity and near 40 percent strikeout rate — both the top marks in the league. But how do those compare to Ohtani’s sparkling sub-1.00 ERA over 10 starts, even if he’s thrown significant fewer innings?

Expect that to be debated all summer long.

Ohtani has logged just 61 innings this year, compared to Sánchez, Misiorowski (71) and Chase Burns (70). The discrepancy is not because of lack of efficiency in Ohtani’s starts. He’s gone six-plus innings in all but one of his outings this year. The Dodgers’ commitment to a six-man rotation has guaranteed Ohtani will start fewer games — and therefore log fewer innings. Los Angeles does not intend to change this plan. The organization has its eyes set on yet another deep October run, and their top priority is ensuring their aces in Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are healthy. The best way to do that, the Dodgers feel, is to keep both players on a five days’ rest schedule. For Ohtani specifically, who is balancing a full season of two-way action for the first time since 2023, that rest could occasionally extend to six or seven days.

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“The chances of (Ohtani and Yamamoto) pitching on regular rest in the regular season, I won’t say zero, but it’s not much higher than that,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said recently.

Ohtani has made it known he covets a Cy Young award. No pitcher of Japanese descent has won it, though Yu Darvish finished runner-up twice. But the Dodgers won’t deviate from their blueprint for the sake of an award — no matter how meaningful — because of the competition.

“Yeah, I can be mindful of it,” Roberts said when asked if the performances of Sánchez and Misiorowski could mean Ohtani needs to throw more innings. “But I still think that you still have to play the game. I have to manage the game accordingly, to what’s best for the team. And I just don’t think, with those three guys, you’re not gonna win it on June 3. So there’s a lot of baseball left.”

That’s not to suggest it can’t be done. Corbin Burnes, then of the Brewers, took home NL Cy Young honors in 2021 with a 2.43 ERA over 167 innings pitched, the lowest innings total for a Cy Young winner not counting relievers or the shortened 2020 season. He beat out Zack Wheeler, who posted a 2.78 ERA to go with his league-high 213 1/3 innings and 247 strikeouts, and Max Scherzer, who had a 2.46 ERA with 236 strikeouts over 179 1/3 innings.

But who’s to say this year’s race will be limited to three? There are plenty of players outside of Ohtani, Sánchez and Misiorowski compiling their own cases as well. Burns has a 2.05 ERA for the Reds and K-9 rate over 10. 2024 winner Chris Sale has dominated for the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves with a 2.23 ERA. Only nine relievers have won the Cy Young in MLB history, and none since Eric Gagne in 2003, but San Diego’s Mason Miller is certainly a worthy candidate. Miller already has 17 saves, has allowed only two earned runs in 24 appearances and has nearly twice as many strikeouts (49) as innings pitched (25). And let’s not forget the reigning winner, Paul Skenes, who hasn’t been as dominant this year but is still carding a 3.09 ERA with the lowest walk rate in the circuit.

There are still roughly 100 games left in the regular season. Plenty can — and will — change about the current Cy Young picture. But after the way Misiorowski and Sánchez asserted themselves in May, the ante is on Ohtani to respond. If it won’t be by tacking on innings, then it will have to come from his sustaining his dominance.

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It’s shaping up to be a good summer to sit back and enjoy the Sho.