Shohei Ohtani , who has a knack for meeting the moment with a flourish, clubbed a 440-foot two-run homer off Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore in the third inning for his 1,000th career hit on Wednesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium. He’s the third Japanese-born player to reach 1,000 in MLB, joining Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui.

Ohtani, who was also the starting pitcher for the Dodgers, gave himself a lead with the homer after he yielded an RBI single to Brendan Donovan in the top of the inning. At the time of the homer, Ohtani had collected five strikeouts through three and hit 100 mph on the radar gun to punch out Alec Burleson in the first.

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