leadoff

In between, he gave up a second-inning run on Jordan Beck’s leadoff walk, a stolen base and two long outs, the second Kyle Farmer’s sacrifice fly to the left-field wall.

And then, two pitches into the game, Ohtani raised them even higher, belting his 12th leadoff home run of the season off fellow Japanese native Tomoyuki Sugano to tie Betts’ single-season franchise record.

In the third, however, he followed a leadoff single by Bryan Reynolds with a pair of wild pitches that got by Rushing.

They scored twice in the first after leadoff hits from Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts, plus an RBI double from Freddie Freeman, and again in the fourth and fifth when Miguel Rojas and Andy Pages each delivered full-count singles to score a run.

However, the real “Ultraman” — Shohei Ohtani of this planet — bats leadoff and pitches every fifth day.