Ohtani’s first‑pitch homer

Shohei Ohtani needed one pitch Sunday: he drove Jacob deGrom’s first offering into the right-field seats for a leadoff home run at Dodger Stadium. (mlb.com) The home run came in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 5-2 loss to the Texas Rangers on April 12, 2026, and it was Ohtani’s second straight leadoff homer. The Rangers avoided a three-game sweep behind deGrom after Ohtani’s opening swing. (apnews.com) Major League Baseball’s game video labeled it Ohtani’s fourth homer at the time of the clip, and ESPN’s game log lists the April 12 shot as his fifth of the 2026 season. ESPN also lists Ohtani at a.286 batting average and a.996 on-base plus slugging percentage through April 12. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The swing landed because it came against deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and because Ohtani had also opened Saturday’s game with a leadoff homer against Texas. Major League Baseball said Saturday’s blast was Ohtani’s 25th career leadoff homer and extended his regular-season on-base streak to 45 games. (mlb.com) That put Sunday’s moment into a larger run of production at the top of the Dodgers’ order. Major League Baseball’s recap said Ohtani had homered on the first pitch he saw for the second straight day, turning a single plate appearance into a replay staple before many fans were in their seats. (mlb.com) Ohtani had already broken Ichiro Suzuki’s mark for the longest on-base streak by a Japanese-born player two days earlier. The Washington Post reported that Ohtani passed Ichiro with a 44-game run on April 10. (washingtonpost.com) The Dodgers open their next series Monday, April 13, against the New York Mets, according to the Associated Press game recap. Ohtani’s first swing Sunday ended as a home run, but the final score still belonged to Texas. (apnews.com)