How Shohei Ohtani quietly joined one of MLB’s most exclusive clubs

Shohei Ohtani seems determined to finish his Major League career as the greatest Japanese player ever to play in the United States. This afternoon, during the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals, he took another step toward that goal by recording his 1,000th hit in MLB.

The Dodgers’ designated hitter came into the game against the Cardinals with 999 hits over 972 MLB appearances. He nearly reached the milestone in his first at-bat of the afternoon, reaching first base after Alec Burleson mishandled his ground ball – though it was ruled an error rather than a hit.

The milestone moment came in the third inning. With Alex Call on second after a double, Ohtani connected with a sinker from Matthew Liberatore and launched it 440 feet to dead center – a two-run homer that marked the 1,000th hit of his MLB career and his 39th home run of the season. Born in Ōshū, Japan, Ohtani now has 264 career home runs.

Who holds the most MLB hits among Japanese players?

With this latest milestone, Ohtani becomes just the third Japanese-born player to reach 1,000 hits in Major League Baseball. The other two are Ichiro Suzuki – recently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame – and Hideki Matsui.

Suzuki played 19 seasons, splitting time between the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Miami Marlins. He notched an extraordinary 3,089 hits in 9,934 at-bats, posting a .311 batting average. Matsui, who spent 10 years in the majors with the Yankees, Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, amassed 1,253 hits in 4,442 at-bats, with a .282 average.

Among active Japanese players, the closest to Ohtani is Seiya Suzuki, who has 501 hits in four seasons. Masataka Yoshida, now in his third MLB season, has already collected 273 hits in just 263 games.

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