Los Angeles. – Shohei Ohtani wrote another historic chapter in his brilliant Major League career by reaching his unstoppable number 1,000 with a huge 440-foot home run, in the Dodgers’ 5-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, at Dodger Stadium.
The two-run hit, connected in the third inning, not only represented his 1,000th home run as an MLB player, but also momentarily gave his team the lead. With this, Ohtani joins Ichiro Suzuki (3,089) and Hideki Matsui (1,253) as the only Japanese-born players to have reached the thousand-hit mark in the Majors.
In addition to his offensive prowess, Ohtani was the starting pitcher, throwing four solid innings, his longest outing of the season. He struck out eight of the 14 batters he faced, without giving up any walks and throwing 54 pitches, 37 of them in the strike zone.
The home run, which left the bat at 109.5 mph and landed in left-center field, also ended a nine-game home run drought for Ohtani. It was his own backing from the mound, something uncommon even in the annals of modern baseball.
With this milestone, the Dodgers now have four active players with at least 1,000 hits in MLB: Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and Dominican Teóscar Hernández.
The two-run hit, connected in the third inning, not only represented his 1,000th home run as an MLB player, but also momentarily gave his team the lead. With this, Ohtani joins Ichiro Suzuki (3,089) and Hideki Matsui (1,253) as the only Japanese-born players to have reached the thousand-hit mark in the Majors.
