It was only a matter of time before Los Angeles Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani entered MLB's record books again.
Ohtani began Tuesday night's game against the Colorado Rockies with a bang, sending Michael Lorenzen's third pitch into Dodger Stadium's left-center field bleachers. With that swing, Ohtani became the latest member of the 300 home run club and the very first Japanese player to accomplish the feat.
Ohtani, 32, needed only 1,121 games and 4,046 at-bats to hit 300 career home runs. This makes him the fifth-fastest player in MLB history to reach the milestone, with only Aaron Judge (955 games), Ralph Kiner (1,087), Ryan Howard (1,093) and Juan Gonzalez (1,096) reaching the milestone faster. Ohtani also needed the seventh-fewest at-bats, with only Judge, Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Kiner, Harmon Killebrew and Howard needing fewer at-bats.
Of course, with the exception of Babe Ruth, none of these players hit these home runs while also pitching. And even then, Ohtani has been a two-way player for significantly longer than Ruth; the Bambino was a two-way player in 1918 and the first half of 1919 before becoming a full-time outfielder, while Ohtani has been a two-way player for his entire career with the exception of the 2024 season.
As mentioned earlier, Ohtani is the first Japanese-born player to hit 300 home runs in Major League Baseball. This naturally makes him the all-time leader in homers among his fellow countrymen; Hideki Matsui previously held the record with 175 career homers over 10 major league seasons, although he played 10 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball and hit 332 home runs before transitioning to North America.
The leadoff blast was Ohtani's 20th home run of the 2026 season. He's hit no fewer than 34 long balls in a season since 2021, and he hit 50+ home runs over the past two seasons.
