WASHINGTON – Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani got his first home run and RBI of the MLB season Friday, blasting a game-tying three-run shot in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 13-6 comeback win over the Washington Nationals.
Ohtani, who amassed 54 and 55 homers respectively in the past two years, launched a big fly with one out in the third inning at Nationals Park as he pulled a 1-0 changeup off former Yomiuri Giant Miles Mikolas (0-2) to tie the game at 3-3.
It came in Ohtani’s 28th trip to the plate for the defending World Series champion Dodgers this season after he went without an extra-base hit in the opening six games with only three singles, having gone deep three times for Japan during the World Baseball Classic in March.
Mookie Betts’s two-run homer also in the third gave the Dodgers a 5-3 lead, while Andy Pages in the fourth and Freddie Freeman in the fifth blasted two-run shots of their own to stretch the lead.
Kyle Tucker had a solo homer in the seventh before Ohtani, who singled in the fourth for his first multiple-hit outing, hit a bases-loaded sacrifice fly with no outs in the ninth for his fourth RBI and the game’s last run.
Rookie Kazuma Okamoto went hitless for the first time after seven MLB games as he struck out four times in the Toronto Blue Jays’ 5-4 walk-off loss in 10 innings against the Chicago White Sox.