Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani tied the record for most home runs by a Japanese player in Major League Baseball and reached 1,000 career hits across Japan and the United States in an 8-7, 11-inning loss to the San Diego Padres on Friday.
His first-inning solo shot moved him alongside former New York Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui with 175 MLB home runs. He registered his 1,000th hit on a double to lead off the fifth at Dodger Stadium.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto surrendered two early home runs but left the game with a 7-3 lead after five innings thanks to a rampant Dodger lineup that also got homers from Max Muncy, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernandez. The Japanese right-hander struck out six while allowing four hits and one walk.
But the Padres evened things up after Yamamoto's exit, hitting two more homers before both teams hit a barren offensive spell that ended when Jackson Merrill singled in the decisive run in the top of the 11th.
Ohtani, the 2023 American League home run champion, launched his fourth bomb of the season deep over center field off Padres starter Michael King in the bottom of the first.
The former Nippon Ham Fighter had 384 hits in Japanese pro baseball before making his MLB debut with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. He hit 30 or more home runs in each of the past three seasons prior to his offseason move to the Dodgers.
Ohtani finished the game 3-for-5. He recorded hit 1,001 with a sharp line-drive double, his MLB-leading 10th, in the seventh against Japanese lefty Yuki Matsui, who wrapped up a scoreless inning by striking out Muncy on three pitches.
Despite his early struggles, Yamamoto marked a big improvement over his first meeting with the Padres last month in Seoul, when his MLB debut lasted just one inning.
On Friday, he gave up a two-run homer to Manny Machado in the first and a solo blast to Kim Ha Seong in the second but finished on a strong note with a 1-2-3 fifth.
Former SoftBank Hawks and Hanshin Tigers right-hander Robert Suarez (1-0) got the win with 1-1/3 scoreless innings of relief.
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