Alden Gonzalez
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- ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the LA Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the LA Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
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LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit his 300th career home run in the first inning of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 4-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, traveling 409 feet and 112 mph to the opposite field.
If you count pitching starts in which he was not in the lineup (which is how this feat is historically measured), Ohtani reached the benchmark in his 1,121st game. Only six players have hit 300 home runs in fewer games – Aaron Judge, Ralph Kiner, Ryan Howard, Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez and Giancarlo Stanton.
According to ESPN Research, Ohtani is the first player in major league history to hit 300 home runs and 100 stolen bases in his first nine seasons. He’s also the only one other than Babe Ruth who does a lot of juggling pitches.
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Ohtani is the 170th player in MLB history to hit 300 homers, and he did it just two days after his 32nd birthday. Over the past five years, he has averaged 47 home runs per season. Five hundred seems within reach.
“He’s still young and strong,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I definitely think 500 is in his future.”
However, pitching is in his near future.
Ohtani has fully recovered from a biceps injury that forced him to leave a recent game early and is preparing to throw his final pitch before the All-Star break on Friday.
Ohtani was replaced as a reliever in the bottom of Friday’s seventh game against the San Diego Padres after feeling tightness in his right bicep while taking a hit in the previous inning. The Dodgers then gave him Saturday off, and Roberts also raised the possibility of missing his next start.
It seems that this will no longer be needed.
“If he makes it through the next couple of days, if he doesn’t feel very well, we’ll change that and we’re ready to change that,” Roberts said before Tuesday’s game. “But as we sit here, I don’t see that changing.”
Ohtani, hitting .294/.409/.541 with 20 home runs as a hitter and 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA as a pitcher, was the top vote-getter in this year’s All-Star Game and will again start at designated hitter. But he is not expected to play in the game, and the Dodgers do not expect him to participate in the home run derby.
That would go against the precautions the Dodgers have taken with him as he enters his first two-way season in three years.
“I would love it, but I think when you’re Shohei, he understands the responsibility he has,” Roberts said. “I do think there’s a middle ground of what’s best for him, which could potentially be a downside, but also what’s best for the game. So I don’t see him in the Home Run Derby, I don’t see him pitch, but I see him take one or two swings with the bat.”