LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani met the moment again, and his latest theatrics have the Los Angeles Dodgers perfect to start the season.
The Japanese superstar hit a tiebreaking home run in the ninth inning on his bobblehead night, lifting the Dodgers over the winless Atlanta Braves 6-5 on Wednesday.
“If I didn’t get a good pitch to hit, I was willing to walk,” Ohtani said through a translator. “Coming into the inning, tied in that last at-bat, it just felt like we really had a good shot to win.”
At 8-0, the Dodgers are off to the best start ever by a defending World Series champion. They’ve trailed in six of those games, but they already have two walk-off wins. And Ohtani has scored in every game.
“Overall, not just tonight, there is a really good vibe within the team,” he said, “so I just think that’s allowing us to come back in these games to win.”
A crowd of 50,281 roared as Ohtani’s 399-foot shot sailed into center field and he rounded the bases.
“You just feel he’s going to do something special,” manager Dave Roberts said.
It was hardly a surprise coming from last year’s NL MVP.
In 2024, his first season with the Dodgers, Ohtani hit a game-ending grand slam on his first bobblehead night. He had a walk-off homer on another of his giveaway nights.
“He keeps getting into these situations and moments where you’re expecting the unthinkable out of him and he rarely disappoints. That’s really saying something,” said teammate Max Muncy, whose two-run double tied the game in the eighth and set the stage for Ohtani.
Dodgers starter Blake Snell said: “When he was coming up and it’s his bobblehead night — everyone knew. We knew. It’s just what he does.”
Thousands lined up hours before first pitch to secure the first of four Ohtani bobbleheads this season. As like last year, traffic snarled around the stadium with helicopters showing the chaos on local television.
“Just grateful as a player to just be able to perform and have an opportunity like this,” said Ohtani, who finished 3 for 5. “I think the credit really goes to Max Muncy to be able to pull through and tie the game.”
Muncy ditched the new torpedo bat he had used earlier in favor of his usual lumber.
“I do think there was some good to using the torpedo bat, just in BP and everything,” he said. “It might be something that I use as a practice bat and then go back to my bat for the game. It seemed to work that last at-bat.”
The Dodgers rallied from a 5-0 deficit after Muncy’s two early errors at third base led to five unearned runs by the Braves against Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner making his second start for his new team.
“I was dumbfounded with the way we were playing. I didn’t recognize that club in the first couple of innings,” Roberts said. “We had no business winning that game, but to our guys’ credit we just kept fighting.”
The bullpen picked up Snell, allowing just three hits over the final five innings. Rookie reliever Jack Dreyer earned his first major league win with two hitless innings.
“We all believe,” Snell said. “We got each other’s backs, and it’s a good feeling to have.”
For Muncy, it seems similar to last year’s never-say-die attitude that helped the Dodgers to their eighth World Series title.
“We’ve been carrying it into this season. It’s been fun to watch,” he said. “The guys don’t give up. No one’s really been down or out on themselves. Just seeing the guys in the clubhouse come together like that, it’s a pretty cool moment.”
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