LOS ANGELES.- Japanese Shohei Ohtani hit his 200th home run in Major League Baseball on Saturday during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 11-9 loss to the Detroit Tigers, decided by a key play by Colombian Gio Urshela.
Ohtani, the highest-paid player in the league, hit a 114-meter drive off Venezuelan pitcher Keider Montero in the fifth inning.
The Japanese star thus reached 29 close calls this season, his first in a Dodgers uniform, and is only surpassed by Aaron Judge (Yankees), who has 34.
Ohtani, 30, had already established himself as the Japanese player with the most home runs in history at the beginning of the season, surpassing the 175 hit by Hideki Matsui.
Ohtani has needed just 794 games and 2,848 at-bats in his seven seasons in the Major Leagues to reach 200 home runs. The Asian player has signed a nine-year contract with the Dodgers as part of a monumental contract that will pay him a salary of around 700 million dollars.
At Detroit’s Comerica Park, the Dodgers led by 9-4 but the home team came back with a five-run explosion in the ninth inning that sent the game into extra innings.
In the tenth inning, the Tigers completed the comeback with a two-run homer by Gio Urshela, the Colombian’s fourth of the season.
Source: AFP