Masataka Yoshida went 4-for-5 with one RBI in his first appearance in six games as the Boston Red Sox trounced the Chicago Cubs 17-0 on Saturday.
Batting sixth as the designated hitter, Yoshida singled in the second, fourth and seventh innings at Fenway Park, before sparking a six-run eighth by doubling in a run with two outs for a 12-0 lead.
"Getting a hit on your first trip to the plate lifts you," Yoshida said. "I managed to get a clean hit to the opposite field off a fastball."
The Red Sox amassed 21 hits in the game and Yoshida scored three runs as the former Orix Buffalo took his tally to 500 across his career in Japan and the United States.
"Scoring runs is a big thing for your team. RBIs are important but I feel the same about scoring," he said.
At Rogers Centre in Toronto, Yusei Kikuchi was tagged with a loss after yielding four runs on nine hits over six innings in the Toronto Blue Jays' 4-2 defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani singled in a run off lefty Kikuchi (2-2) in the second for a 3-0 lead to help his team win their sixth straight and condemn the Blue Jays to their fifth consecutive loss.
Kikuchi could only give a wry grin after Ohtani, a fellow former student of Hanamaki Higashi High School in northeastern Japan's Iwate Prefecture, lined a drive off his season's-fastest 98.2 miles-per-hour four-seamer.
"That was a pitch I had my full arm swing, but the ball was at right field as soon as I threw it," Kikuchi said. "The ball traveled so fast off the bat that I couldn't even see it."
Ohtani recorded a 119.2 mph exit velocity on the single, which according to MLB.com is the hardest-hit ball in his majors career and the hardest by any player this year.
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