The Los Angeles Dodgers’ first road trip of the season began with a weekend matchup against the Chicago Cubs, which represented gave Shohei Ohtani an opportunity to play at historic Wrigley Field.
It was one of the three remaining stadiums that Ohtani had yet to set foot on. Also on the list are National’s Park in Washington D.C. and PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Ohtani has the chance to complete his tour of every MLB stadium later this season when the Dodgers go on the road to play the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates on April 23-25 and June 4-6, respectively.
Meanwhile, Ohtani enjoyed his first experience in Chicago even inclement weather at Wrigley Field was more favorable to pitchers, via SportsNet LA:
“This time around it wasn’t quite hitter-friendly, but just being a classical, beautiful type of field, it was really nice to be able to play on.”
Despite the less-than-ideal weather during the Ohtani’s time in Chicago, he still found a way to be extremely productive in the series and broke out in a big way.
With just three extra-base hits and no home runs through his first eight games, Ohtani was searching for his timing and just needed that one swing to find it.
That is exactly what has happened after Ohtani hit his first homer of the season in the series finale against the San Francisco Giants on April 3. In the three games against the Cubs, Ohtani went 6-for-13 with four extra-base hits, including a home run on Friday.
Ohtani nearly had his first multi-homer game with the Dodgers, but strong wind kept a ball with a 110.2 mph exit velocity and .910 expected batting average on the warning track.
The trip to Wrigley Field also afforded Ohtani an opportunity to reunite with fellow Japanese natives Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga.
Shohei Ohtani’s streak snapped
Dating back to the night of his first home run on April 3, Ohtani produced a streak of five consecutive games with multiple hits. However, he went 1-for-5 with two strikeouts on Tuesday.
That ended Ohtani’s career-best streak of consecutive multi-hit games.
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