Okamoto homers again

Kazuma Okamoto went deep again on April 19, lifting his early Major League total to three home runs in his first 23 games with Toronto. (mlb.com) The homer came in the third inning of the Blue Jays’ 12-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. MLB’s tracking data measured it at 406 feet off an 83.9 mile-per-hour slider from Arizona right-hander Slade Cecconi Hoffmann, with a 103.3 mile-per-hour exit velocity. (mlb.com) Okamoto’s 2026 line through April 19 stood at a.221 batting average,.294 on-base percentage and.364 slugging percentage, with 17 hits, eight runs batted in and 29 strikeouts in 77 at-bats. His first two home runs came on March 29 against the Athletics and March 30 against Colorado. (espn.com) Toronto signed Okamoto to a four-year, $60 million contract with a $5 million signing bonus on January 4, betting that his power in Japan would carry over to the American League. He arrived after 11 seasons with the Yomiuri Giants, where he hit 248 home runs and posted a.277 career average in Nippon Professional Baseball. (mlb.com) (npb.jp) That résumé is why each early home run gets attention even while his overall numbers remain modest. Okamoto led Japan’s Central League in home runs three times, in 2020, 2021 and 2023, and drove in 717 runs for Yomiuri before moving to North America. (npb.jp) He also arrived with a larger profile than most first-year players in Toronto. In his March 27 Major League debut, a sellout crowd of 42,728 at Rogers Centre gave him a standing ovation for his first plate appearance. (mlb.com) Sunday’s swing did not erase the slow start, but it kept the one tool Toronto paid for most clearly in view. For now, Okamoto’s first month is reading as two numbers at once: a.658 OPS overall and three home runs that keep showing up in the box score. (espn.com)