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Shohei Ohtani reminded everyone why he’s baseball’s ultimate two-way player.
On May 21 at Petco Park in San Diego, Ohtani started for the Los Angeles Dodgers and threw five scoreless innings on 88 pitches, allowing three hits and picking up his fourth win of the season.
Batting as the pitcher and leading off the game, he hammered San Diego starter Randy Vasquez’s high fastball on the very first pitch of the matchup, sending it over the center-field wall for a leadoff, first-pitch home run.
The Dodgers went on to win 4-0, and Ohtani’s homer proved to be the game-deciding blow.
According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, that was Ohtani’s second career leadoff homer as a pitcher in an official game, coming after Game 4 of last year’s National League Championship Series.
He also became just the seventh player — counting regular season and postseason — to start a game, throw a scoreless outing and hit a home run in the same contest.
Legendary pitcher Bob Gibson, who amassed more than 250 wins and over 3,000 strikeouts and was no stranger to the long ball, had held the post-1900 mark with six such games. Ohtani topped that total.
The performance was even more significant because it marked Ohtani’s return to two-way duty.
After his April 23 start against the San Francisco Giants, Ohtani did not bat in the next three games so the team could concentrate his role on pitching.
The temporary move was made because his bat had been struggling, making it difficult to handle both jobs effectively.
On Sunday, he combined a dominant outing on the mound with a thunderous homer, signaling the revival of his two-way game.
After leaving the mound, Ohtani remained in the lineup as the designated hitter and finished the game there.
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