Rafu Staff and Wire Service Reports
BALTIMORE – Shohei Ohtani reached 10 home runs for the third straight season Thursday and beat out a late infield single to key the Angels’ 6-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles.
Ohtani’s first-inning homer made it 1-0 Angels at Baltimore’s Camden Yards. It was the seventh time in his major league career he reached double digits in home runs and his fifth time in MLB. He joined Hideki Matsui and Kosuke Fukudome as the only Japanese to hit 10-plus homers in three straight MLB seasons.
Mike Trout joined Ohtani on 10 homers with a two-run shot in the third to make it 3-0 Angels before two Orioles rallies gave the hosts a 5-4 seventh-inning lead.
With the game tied 5-5 in the eighth with two outs and the bases loaded, Orioles first baseman Ryan Mountcastle made a diving stop on a hard-hit ground ball from Ohtani.
Pitcher Danny Coulombe had no chance to beat Ohtani to the bag, allowing the go-ahead run to score.
Ohtani finished the day 2-for-5.
Lars Nootbaar had a hit with an RBI and scored a run, as the St. Louis Cardinals won a wild contest, 16-8 over the L.A. Dodgers.
Starter Julio Urías took his fourth loss after gaving up four home runs in one inning, the first Dodger to suffer that fate since 1954.
In New York on Thursday, Kodai Senga struck out 12 over six innings of one-run ball before his Mets rallied late to walk off with an 8-7, 10-inning win against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Seiya Suzuki, meanwhile, homered twice in the Chicago Cubs’ 7-6 loss to the Houston Astros. He became the first Japanese-born player to hit home runs in three straight plate appearances in MLB after hitting one in the ninth inning of the previous day’s game, according to the Cubs.
Trailing 5-2 in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets tied it on Francisco Alvarez’s three-run home run. The American League East-leading Rays went back up 7-5 in the top of the 10th before Pete Alonso clinched the walk-off win with a three-run blast in the home half.