BETH HARRIS

Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 7:38 PM PDT

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/shohei-ohtani-hits-300th-career-023826815.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit his 300th career homer on Tuesday night, a leadoff shot against Colorado Rockies pitcher Michael Lorenzen that made him the first Japanese-born player in the majors to reach the milestone.

The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ two-way superstar blasted a 409-foot line drive to center on a 2-0 pitch for his 20th homer of the season. Center fielder Cole Carrigg could only watch it fly out.

“It was quite the homer,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was 119 (mph exit velocity) off the bat, low-launching, it was squared up, got out in a hurry. I just marvel at him every day. Three hundred is a big number.”

Ohtani is the fifth-fastest in history to reach 300 and the 170th member of the club. It took him 1,102 games between playing for the Los Angeles Angels and Dodgers; New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge was the quickest at 955 games.

It was Ohtani’s 31st career leadoff homer and seventh this season. He also homered in the Dodgers’ 8-7 victory in 11 innings on Monday night to highlight a 3-for-4 performance.

Roberts believes there’s a lot more homers within reach for Ohtani, who turned 32 last Sunday.

“He just had a birthday, still young, still strong, so I definitely think 500 is in his future,” the manager said.

Teammate Freddie Freeman bowed as Ohtani made his way back to the dugout.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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Shohei Ohtani hits 300th career home run leading off vs. Rockies

Ohtani delivered the milestone blast in the Dodgers’ first at-bat Tuesday

Jack BaerStaff writer

Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 7:20 PM PDT15

In this story

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Given everything Shohei Ohtani has accomplished since his arrival in MLB — two World Series rings, four MVP trophies, season after season that would’ve been completely unprecedented in a world without him — reaching 300 career home runs seems almost quaint.

That’s not to say it isn’t meaningful, though.

The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ superstar clubbed the 300th long ball of his MLB career on Tuesday while leading off against Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen in the bottom of the first inning. The Rockies went on to win 4-3.

Ohtani is the 170th MLB player to join the 300-homer club, and he does so not long after his teammate Mookie Betts. You can probably guess how many other players in that group also have 750 career strikeouts on the mound.Shohei OhtaniDH – LAD – #172026 season320AB.294AVG20HR6SB.949OPS Buy LA Dodgers tickets onGametime

Ohtani got to 300 homers in his ninth MLB season, though with only 47 of them in the first three. He averaged 46.6 homers per season from 2021 to 2025, a span of time that saw him post the first 50-homer, 50-stolen-base season in MLB history in 2024. He also won four MVP awards in that span, a career total surpassed only by Barry Bonds.

This season is shaping up to be another all-timer, with Ohtani the overwhelming favorite to win NL MVP honors for a third straight year and a dark-horse candidate to win his first Cy Young Award.

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Shohei Ohtani’s career goes well beyond 300 homers

The slow start to Ohtani’s MLB career feels very long ago. He has turned into a singular superstar in MLB, with an international reach that no other player can match and a résumé that would’ve been considered comical if presented as a to-do list in 2018.

Having turned 32 on Sunday, Ohtani has shown few signs of slowing down. His $700 million contract, a windfall that once shocked baseball, has become perhaps the most valuable piece of paper in sports, with the Dodgers bringing in and using enough revenue that they’re getting name-checked in MLB’s public materials calling for a salary cap. Ohtani is also a national hero in Japan, where his level of celebrity surpasses anything seen in the U.S.

All of that is to reiterate that we’re watching one of the most impactful careers in MLB history. It will be years before we fully understand the effects of Shohei Ohtani, but for now, he’s still got plenty of homers to go.

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Shohei Ohtani, with 300th career home run, is crossing into legend status before our eyes

Homer No. 300 represents the first major statistical milestone of Ohtani’s already storied big-league career

Jake MintzSenior writer

Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 7:27 PM PDT122

From Shohei Ohtani, something special, something new.

The Dodgers’ two-way dynamo cranked the 300th home run of his MLB career Tuesday, the latest milestone in a career that has constantly redefined the limits of baseballing dominance. Leading off the game for the Dodgers, Ohtani deposited the third pitch he saw, a 93.3-mph sinker from Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen, into the center-field seats.

It was another addition to his already astonishing highlight reel.

That said, nearly all of Ohtani’s numerous achievements to this point have been measured and appreciated within the context of his sheer existence or his greatness over a single game or a full season. Ohtani is a fun fact machine in large part because nobody else in MLB hits and pitches. That he’s doing both, at any level, is stunning. His mere existence has often felt improbable — a player whose skill set belongs more to folklore than modern baseball.

Ohtani’s four MVP awards — more than anybody in MLB history except Barry Bonds, with more almost certainly to come — are a reminder of that greatness.

There is a minor but critical distinction between being the greatest of all time and being the best to ever do it. Ohtani is, undeniably, the latter. His performance in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS — 10 strikeouts over six scoreless innings on the mound, 3-for-3 with three home runs at the plate — was the sport’s ultimate peak. Nobody had ever been that overwhelmingly good at this thing we call baseball.

But without wading too deeply into a reductive, pointless GOAT conversation, what separates the All-Stars from the Hall of Famers is, more often than not, longevity. That means conjuring magic day after day and, crucially, year after year. Ballplayers and ball fans often respect nothing more than boring, old-fashioned consistency.

In other words, legends are measured in decades. Home run No. 300 was a reminder that Ohtani, who turned 32 years old Sunday, is crossing over into legend status before our eyes. This milestone provides an opportunity to appreciate not just what he’s doing but also what he has already done.

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Remember, Ohtani’s offensive profile was not always a sure thing. When he jumped from Japan to MLB ahead of the 2018 season, he struggled mightily at the plate during that first spring training with the Angels. Across 36 plate appearances, he managed just four hits, none of them of the extra-base variety. He struck out 10 times and looked generally overmatched.

For this very website, the typically correct Jeff Passan, now of ESPN, wrote an article that spring titled: The verdict is in on Shohei Ohtani’s bat and it’s not good. In the piece, published on March 9, 2018, Passan cited eight MLB scouts who, after watching Ohtani in person, expressed serious doubt about whether he would be a viable big-league hitter.

“They want to be wrong,” Passan wrote. “For the sake of baseball, they want Shohei Ohtani to blossom into a true two-way player, a starting pitcher extraordinaire and power-hitting dynamo, a multinational marketing sensation. They want their eyes – the ones that have seen Ohtani this spring and believe he cannot hit at the major league level today – to be lying.”

By April 6 of that year, Ohtani had clubbed his first three MLB homers in his second, third and fourth MLB games.

On April 9, Passan offered his apology.

This context is crucial because it highlights how none of this was a given. Today, Ohtani as the two-way superstar feels destined, preordained, obvious and inevitable. But his march toward bronze sporting immortality in upstate New York was never a sure thing. Ohtani has adjusted and adapted and done both all over again and again to become the player he has become.

And now, in his ninth MLB season, he has reached a legitimately monumental milestone, one that further solidifies his claim as the best to ever do it — and adds to his growing case as the greatest of all time.