Shohei Ohtani notches 1,000th career hit with home run on same day he strikes out 8 batters
Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star achieved yet another incredible feat on the diamond on Wednesday, notching his 1,000th career hit with a go-ahead home run on the same day he struck out a season-high eight batters.
It was just the eighth start of Ohtani's tenure with the Boys in Blue, after missing the 2024 season while recovering from elbow surgery. He hurled four innings, his longest showing of the season as he continues to ramp up towards full availability as a starter, allowing one run on two hits.
In the third inning, just moments after he struck out St. Louis Cardinals catcher Ivan Herrera with a nasty breaking pitch, Ohtani slugged a 440-foot two-run homer to deep center, giving the Dodgers what was at the time a 2-1 lead. It was hit No. 1,000 for his MLB career, and career homer No. 264. When combined with his Nippon Professional Baseball statistics in Japan, he now has 1,297 hits and 312 homers.
The home run was Ohtani's 39th this season, putting him just three behind the Seattle Mariners' Cal Raleigh for the MLB lead.
Ohtani is now the third Japanese-born player to achieve the feat, joining the likes of Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki — who had 3,088 hits in his MLB career — and Hideki Matsui, who tallied 1,253 hits in 10 seasons.
Los Angeles ultimately wound up losing Wednesday's contest 5-2 as their bullpen was unable to hold off the Cardinals late scoring, highlighted by two RBIs off the bat of Lars Nootbaar.
