Shohei Ohtani broke up a shutout in the bottom of the ninth inning with his sixth home run of the season, putting the Los Angeles Angels on the board in a 7-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday.

Batting fifth in the lineup as the designated hitter, the rookie two-way sensation from Japan was hitless in his first three at-bats before coming to the plate against reliever Austin Pruitt with one out in the ninth at Angel Stadium.

Ohtani took the right-hander out to dead center for a solo home run from a 1-1 count, his first roundtripper and RBI in 10 days, but could not prevent the Angels from slipping to their third straight defeat.

Ohtani, who is scheduled to pitch against the Rays in the fourth and final game of the current series on Sunday, wished his homer could have come earlier in the game.

"I think the outcome of the game would have been different if I had hit it earlier," the 23-year-old said. "I didn't have very good at-bats and I need to learn from this. Most importantly, it annoys me that we couldn't win."

(Shohei Ohtani goes yard against the Rays on Thursday.)

At Marlins Park, Kenta Maeda won his third game as he spun eight shutout innings in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 7-0 win over the Miami Marlins.

The Japanese right-hander (3-3) allowed two hits and whiffed eight without a walk. Maeda's stellar pitching, together with Justin Turner's five RBIs, helped the Dodgers snap a six-game losing streak.

"It hasn't been easy to get wins, so I really focused on my throwing," Maeda said. "I felt like I was able to throw instinctively. I also did a good job of getting batters to swing at my pitches. I want this to continue."

In his most impressive outing of the season thus far, the 30-year-old was lethal with his fastball and slider, perplexing the Marlins batters in breaking his own four-game winless streak.

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"I was trying to get back on track and into my rhythm, and was able to get a good result," Maeda said.

A two-time winner of the Sawamura Award, bestowed on the most impressive starting pitcher in Japanese baseball, Maeda credited a slight tweak in mechanics with helping him in his 96-pitch outing against the Marlins.

"I was rushing my delivery a little bit, so I made sure I put the weight on my leg before I pitched," he told MLB.com.

The Marlins after the game said they had designated Junichi Tazawa for assignment after the 31-year-old reliever threw in the fourth inning, allowing three runs on four hits and a walk.

The Japanese right-hander has pitched 20 innings this season and allowed 20 earned runs for an ERA of 9.00.