Shohei Ohtani opened with a blast and kept going on the mound Wednesday night, hitting a leadoff home run before throwing six hitless innings against the Rockies. The performance gave the Dodgers a rare two-way showcase and left Ohtani as the only pitcher in major league history to hit a leadoff homer.
It was the second straight game in which Ohtani homered to lead off a game as the pitcher, and only the third time he has done it in his career. The timing made the outing the kind fans search for when his name trends: one swing at the top, then six innings in which Colorado never managed a hit. He was not spotless, though. Ohtani allowed one run, and the line that followed his no-hit work was messy enough to keep the night from feeling complete.
He issued four walks and hit one batter, and only 56 of his 99 pitches were strikes, his lowest strike rate in any of his nine starts this season. In the fourth inning, he walked the leadoff batter, hit the next hitter, then watched a run score after two groundouts. The Rockies still could not scratch out a hit, but Ohtani’s control wavered just enough to turn a dominant outing into one he could nitpick.
Through his interpreter, Ohtani said he wanted to avoid the hits, but the walks came instead. “That’s something that I just don’t really want to do,” he said. That frustration matters because he has still not allowed more than two runs in any start this season, and Wednesday extended that run while also showing how narrow the line can be when he is both powering a lineup and carrying a game from the mound. The next question is whether this latest start becomes another marker in a season that keeps adding them, or just the latest reminder that even Ohtani can leave the field wanting more.
