SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — Shohei Ohtani hit a leadoff home run on the first pitch from Randy Vásquez and pitched five scoreless innings as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres 4-0 at Petco Park. Ohtani allowed three hits and struck out four, dropping his season ERA to 0.73.

The home run traveled 398 feet to right-center field and left Ohtani's bat at 111.3 mph, giving the Dodgers a 1-0 lead before he took the mound. The combination of starting on the mound and hitting a leadoff homer marked the second known instance of a pitcher hitting a leadoff home run in Major League Baseball history. Both instances belong to Ohtani, who became the first to do so in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Vásquez entered the start with a 5-1 record and a 2.68 ERA, having thrown six shutout innings in his previous outing. His four-seam fastball averaged 94.9 mph this season, up from 93.5 mph the previous year. In two prior 2025 starts against the Dodgers, Vásquez went 0-1 with a 4.05 ERA in 13.1 innings, and Ohtani was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts against him in those games.

In his previous start, Ohtani pitched seven shutout innings against the San Francisco Giants, struck out eight and allowed four hits in a 4-0 win, lowering his ERA to 0.82 at the time. That mark was the second-lowest in Dodgers history through seven starts, trailing Fernando Valenzuela's 0.29 ERA in 1981, and the sixth-lowest in the wild-card era since 1994. The last pitcher with a lower ERA through seven starts was Jacob deGrom at 0.80 in 2021.

Ohtani extended a six-game hitting streak that began the night before his start against the Giants. In the three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels that followed that outing, he went 6 for 16 with seven RBIs.

The Padres and Dodgers were competing for the NL West lead at the time of the series. Ohtani is scheduled to start on the mound and serve as the designated hitter in the series finale at Petco Park.