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Shohei Ohtani met the second once more, and his newest theatrics have maintained the Los Angeles Dodgers’ excellent begin to the MLB season.
The Japanese star hit a walk-off house run within the ninth inning on his bobblehead evening, lifting the Dodgers over the winless Atlanta Braves 6-5 on Wednesday.
“If I didn’t get a very good pitch to hit, I used to be keen to stroll,” Ohtani stated by a translator. “Coming into the inning, tied in that final at-bat, it simply felt like we actually had a very good shot to win.”
At 8-0, the Dodgers are off to the perfect begin ever by a defending World Sequence champion. They’ve trailed in six of these video games, however they have already got two walk-off wins. And Ohtani has scored in each recreation.
“General, not simply tonight, there’s a actually good vibe throughout the group,” he stated, “so I simply assume that’s permitting us to come back again in these video games to win.”
A crowd of fifty,281 roared as Ohtani’s 399ft shot sailed into middle discipline and he rounded the bases.
“You simply really feel he’s going to do one thing particular,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated.
It was hardly a shock coming from final 12 months’s NL MVP. In 2024, his first season with the Dodgers, Ohtani hit a game-ending grand slam on his first bobblehead evening. He had a walk-off homer on one other of his giveaway nights.
“He retains moving into these conditions and moments the place you’re anticipating the unthinkable out of him and he hardly ever disappoints. That’s actually saying one thing,” stated teammate Max Muncy, whose two-run double tied the sport within the eighth and set the stage for Ohtani.
“I don’t assume anyone didn’t count on him to hit a walk-off house run there,” Dodgers utility man Tommy Edman stated. “It’s only a query of the place he’d hit it.”
Hundreds lined up hours earlier than first pitch to safe the primary of 4 Ohtani bobbleheads this season. As as was the case final 12 months, site visitors snarled across the stadium with helicopters exhibiting the chaos on native tv.
“Simply grateful as a participant to simply be capable to carry out and have a chance like this,” stated Ohtani, who completed 3 for five. “I believe the credit score actually goes to Max Muncy to have the ability to pull by and tie the sport.”
Muncy ditched the brand new torpedo bat he had used earlier in favor of his previous one. “I do assume there was some good to utilizing the torpedo bat, simply in BP and all the things,” he stated. “It is likely to be one thing that I take advantage of as a observe bat after which return to my bat for the sport. It appeared to work that final at-bat.”
The Dodgers rallied from a 5-0 deficit after Muncy’s two early errors at third base led to 5 unearned runs by the Braves in opposition to Snell, a two-time Cy Younger Award winner making his second begin for his new group.
“I used to be dumbfounded with the way in which we had been enjoying. I didn’t acknowledge that membership within the first couple of innings,” Roberts stated. “We had no enterprise successful that recreation, however to our guys’ credit score we simply saved preventing.”
The Braves, who many tipped to problem the Dodgers for the Nationwide League title, at the moment are 0-7. No group has ever made the playoffs after shedding their first seven video games.
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