SAN DIEGO — The Los Angeles Dodgers witnessed the full power of their two-way superstar on Wednesday night as he delivered excellence both at the plate and on the mound in a commanding 4-0 win against the San Diego Padres.
Making his first dual appearance in nearly a month, the four-time MVP wasted no time making an impact, connecting on the opening pitch of the game for a home run before taking the mound to deliver five innings of stellar pitching, allowing just three hits.
The performance marked his eighth home run of the campaign and dropped his earned run average to an impressive 0.73, establishing himself as the league leader among hurlers with a minimum of 25 innings pitched.
Despite the outstanding results, the Japanese star expressed some reservations about his outing through his interpreter, stating he had “a lot of uncertainty coming into this outing, because the feel wasn’t great. And so the results were good, but as you saw, the process wasn’t that great. … I have a pretty high standard in terms of performance, so it didn’t really match.”
The unique demands of excelling in both roles have presented challenges this season. While his mound work has been exceptional with the lowest ERA among qualified pitchers, his offensive production struggled through April and into May, particularly his power numbers.
“Like we all know, he wants to win that Cy Young, and he wants to help us win games, and he wants to be a really productive offensive player,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained. “At this point in time, he’s doing all of the above.”
Recent weeks have seen a turnaround at the plate with 13 hits across his last seven contests. However, his offensive contributions had been absent during pitching appearances this season, leading Roberts to remove him from the batting order for his previous three starts on the mound.
The decision reportedly didn’t sit well with the superstar, but Roberts only returned him to the lineup at Petco Park due to Thursday’s scheduled day off.
His approval of the decision was immediate, as he drove Randy Vásquez’s elevated fastball 398 feet to center field for his eighth homer and 27th career leadoff blast.
“I think that he’s very mindful of everything that’s said about him, and at times he uses that as motivation to prove people wrong, that he can do something,” Roberts observed. “I think that he likes to contribute, and I know that he’s heard about (his struggles) on days that he pitches or days after he pitches. So for him to homer in that first at-bat, I think he was like, ‘OK, I’ve contributed on the offensive side.’ And then he took some good at-bats tonight.”
The feat made him the only player in baseball history to hit a game-opening homer while serving as the starting pitcher, accomplishing this rare double for the second time. His first occurrence came during one of baseball’s most memorable individual performances — a three-homer, pitching victory masterpiece in the decisive Game 4 of last fall’s National League Championship Series against Milwaukee.
Following Wednesday’s performance, the pitcher credited his hitting counterpart for providing early support.
“The goal as a pitcher is not to give up the first run, so I was glad I was able to not do that,” he said through his interpreter. “I was glad we were able to score first.”
That single run proved sufficient, as he has surrendered merely four earned runs across 49 innings this season, keeping opponents off the scoreboard in five of his eight starts.
His mound work in San Diego lacked smoothness but achieved effectiveness. Though he dispatched the Padres’ initial nine hitters, the effort required 52 pitches, ultimately resulting in his briefest start of the season at fewer than six innings with just 88 pitches, barely exceeding his season minimum. Roberts managed his workload carefully due to his dual role.
“It’s just another case in point that it’s good for us to be mindful of the workload and just not take that for granted,” Roberts noted. “But again, he’s pretty special.”
Challenging situations arose in his final two frames, but he navigated them successfully. With San Diego loading the bases in the fifth inning on two singles and a walk with one out, he induced Fernando Tatis Jr. to ground into a double play on his final delivery.
The moment brought visible emotion from the typically reserved star, who roared with joy in a rare display of the enthusiasm he seldom shows as a hitter.
“I loved the results, but I had walked the guy before, and that wasn’t quite exactly what I wanted to do there, so just the results were good,” he reflected.
