Shohei Ohtani hit the 300th home run of his career Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, leading off the bottom of the first inning against Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen, depositing a 93.3 mph sinker into the center field seats on the third pitch of the game. The Dodgers won. He made history. Same old Tuesday.
Ohtani, who turned 32 on Sunday, becomes the 170th member of the 300-home run club in MLB history and the first Japanese-born player to reach the milestone.
He is also the only player in the 300-homer club with more than 700 career strikeouts as a pitcher, with 765 punchouts, he leads the group by a margin that is almost comically large. Babe Ruth, who is second, has 501.
That sentence says everything about what Ohtani is.
He got to 300 in his ninth MLB season. His first three produced just 47 home runs combined, scouts doubted he could hit at the major league level when he arrived from Japan in 2018.
From 2021 through 2025 he averaged 46.6 home runs per season, a stretch that included the first 50-homer, 50-stolen-base season in MLB history.
He has four MVPs, two World Series rings, a $700 million contract and is a national hero in Japan.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game: "We're always talking about the 500 club." That is where this is going.