Shohei Ohtani hit 30 home runs for the fourth straight year in Major League Baseball on Sunday as the Los Angeles Dodgers won their third straight game, 9-6 over the Boston Red Sox.
A whopping 473-foot solo shot to center, off a 2-1 cutter from Red Sox right-hander Kutter Crawford, gave his team a 6-2 lead in the fifth inning at Dodger Stadium. The two-way star was the first Japanese player to reach 30 homers twice in MLB -- in 2022 with the Los Angeles Angels.
"It had a good launch angle. I was following the ball roughly (after hitting it) but couldn't visually see where it went," Ohtani said of his blast. "I'll strive to hit one even better."
It was Ohtani's first second-half home run after belting his first MLB All-Star homer on Tuesday.
The 30-year-old leads the National League in homers, two ahead of Marcell Ozuna of the Atlanta Braves, and he is one short of 250 in his career, including 48 in Japan's major leagues.
"I think extra-base hits are my trademark," Ohtani said. "But because I'm now batting leadoff, I have to think about just reaching base. The important thing is finding that balance."
Ohtani went 1-for-3 with one RBI, while Masataka Yoshida did the same for the Red Sox, who lost their third straight.
Elsewhere, Shota Imanaga could not get his ninth win but struck out 10 in Chicago, the most in his rookie MLB season, while tossing seven innings of one-run ball on two hits in the Cubs' 2-1 walk-off win over the Arizona Diamondbacks after 10 innings.
After allowing his first hit of the game with two outs in the sixth, Imanaga gave up a solo homer to Eugenio Suarez in the seventh. Imanaga's countryman and Cubs cleanup Seiya Suzuki tied the game in the ninth with an RBI single before a bases-loaded walk in the 10th gave the win to the home team.
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