As the last nine years have shown us, any day that Shohei Ohtani sets foot on a baseball field is a chance for something historic to happen. That’s exactly what happened on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, as Ohtani hit his 300th career home run in leadoff fashion.
He’s unlike any other player we have ever seen. With that, there’s plenty of context to put Ohtani’s accomplishment in perspective.
Here are seven stats and facts from Ohtani’s 300th.
1. Ohtani got here in a hurry. He reached 300 home runs in his 1,101st career game with at least one plate appearance. That’s the fifth-fewest games in MLB history with at least one plate appearance to reach 300 home runs, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The only players with fewer such games to reach the mark are Aaron Judge (953), Ralph Kiner (1,086), Ryan Howard (1,091) and Juan Gonzalez (1,093). The four players ahead of Ohtani combined for a grand total of zero pitching appearances in their careers. Ohtani has made 114, including 95 games where he both pitched and batted at least once.
2. Speaking of his pitching, Ohtani already had the most career home runs of anyone in MLB history to strike out at least 510 batters, but now he has a round number with 300 homers. Let’s look at this another way. There are now 170 players with at least 300 career home runs. Eight of them have struck out at least one batter, led by Ohtani’s 765 strikeouts as a pitcher. The others? Babe Ruth, with 501 strikeouts (714 homers), Jimmie Foxx with 11 (534), Dave Kingman with four (442), Rocky Colavito with two (374), Ted Williams with one (521), Gary Gaetti with one (360) and Anthony Rizzo with one (303).
3. Of Ohtani’s 300 home runs, 19 have come in games he pitched in. That includes his two leadoff homers as a pitcher in the regular season — on May 20 and 27 this year. Along with his 2025 NLCS Game 4 leadoff homer, those are the only ones as a pitcher in MLB history.
4. No. 300 wasn’t in a game he pitched, but it was a leadoff home run. Ohtani is the second player in MLB history with a leadoff home run for his 300th career home run, joining Steve Finley on June 14, 2006. It was Ohtani’s 25th leadoff home run since joining the Dodgers. That’s already the third-most leadoff home runs in Dodgers history, behind Mookie Betts (32) and Davey Lopes (28).
5. Ohtani isn’t the only Dodgers player to hit his 300th career home run this season. Betts did so on June 24. The 2026 Dodgers are the 14th team to have multiple players hit their 300th career home runs in the same season, per Elias. It’s the second time it’s happened in Dodgers history, along with J.D. Martinez and Freddie Freeman in 2023. The only other franchise on the list twice is the Cubs, in 2010 (Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano) and 1971 (Billy Williams, Ron Santo).
6. He doesn’t just hit home runs, Ohtani crushes them. Tuesday’s had an exit velocity of 112.2 mph. Ohtani’s 300th home run was his 77th of at least 112 mph. That’s the second-most in MLB since the start of 2018, when Ohtani debuted, behind only Judge (81).
7. At the end of the day, 300 is just a stepping stone toward the next Ohtani feat. If you want a number to track, consider this: The home run was Ohtani’s 129th with the Dodgers. Only seven players have had more home runs in their first three seasons with a team: Mark McGwire (STL: 159), Alex Rodriguez (TEX: 156), Ruth (NYY: 148), Khris Davis (OAK: 133), Roger Maris (NYY: 133), Kyle Schwarber (PHI: 131) and Cecil Fielder (DET: 130). And there’s plenty of season left.