LOS ANGELES — Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani has broken Hideki Matsui‘s record for the most homers hit by a Japanese-born player in Major League Baseball.
Ohtani crushed a two-run homer deep into the right-field bleachers off Adrian Houser of the New York Mets in the third inning of L.A.’s 10-0 win Sunday at Dodger Stadium.
The homer was the 176th of Ohtani’s six-plus seasons in the majors. That’s one more than Matsui, the former New York Yankees slugger who played the final 10 seasons of his 20-year pro career in North America.
“Honestly, I was just relieved I was able to get it over with,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, Will Ireton.
Ohtani admired and emulated Matsui while growing up in Japan during the prime of Matsui’s MLB career. Yet Ohtani said the record was “not something I was cognizant of when I first started my career here, but as I got to know…
