SAN DIEGO — Playing both ways in the same game for the first time in almost a month, Shohei Ohtani needed just one pitch to notch his latest bit of MLB history.
After being held out of the Dodgers’ lineup in each of his past three pitching appearances, the two-way star was back in as the Dodgers’ designated and leadoff hitter Wednesday night at Petco Park.
That meant, toeing the rubber for the first time, he came up to the plate to begin the game.
On the first pitch he saw, he hit a home run of unprecedented proportions.
In Game 4 of last year’s National League Championship Series, Ohtani became the first pitcher to hit a leadoff home run in an MLB game — marking the start of what became an iconic three-homer, 10-strikeout performance.
By doing so again Wednesday, Ohtani recorded the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in regular-season MLB history.
Not that there has ever been much competition for such a distinction, of course. In MLB’s modern era, according to league researcher Sarah Langs, only three other pitchers have ever occupied the leadoff spot in a batting order.
Ohtani, however, is different.
And lately, he has started looking like himself once again at the plate.
While Wednesday’s blast, which came on an elevated fastball from Padres right-hander Randy Vásquez, was only his eighth of the season (far off the 50-plus homer pace he has set the past two seasons), it marked his 13th hit and seventh extra-base knock in his last seven games offensively.
Before that stretch, Ohtani had been mired in a monthlong slump in which he batted only .200.
It was part of the reason the Dodgers had limited him to three consecutive pitching starts without hitting.
He made sure to make a statement in his return to two-way duties Wednesday.