Shohei Ohtani became the fourth Japanese-born player to win Rookie of the Year, as the Los Angeles Angels‘ two-way sensation beat out New York Yankees duo Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres for the American League award.

Ohtani earned 25 of 30 first-place votes to run away with the award. The other five votes went to Andujar, who finished as runner-up.

“Accomplishing something this special my first year means a whole lot to me,” Ohtani told MLB Network through a translator. “Especially, I think it means a whole lot for people that have been supporting me this whole time, so I’m really grateful.”

Ohtani joins Hideo Nomo (1995), Kazuhiro Sasaki (2000) and Ichiro Suzuki (2001) as Japanese players to be honored after his debut year in Major League Baseball. The Angels star was particularly proud to be the first from his country to win the award since Suzuki did so 17 years ago.

“[Suzuki] is someone that [Ohtani] watched ever since he was a little kid and always looked up to until this day,” said Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.

The Angels had high hopes for both Ohtani’s bat and his pitching arm, and the 24-year-old lived up to the hype in his first season with the Angels, hitting .285 with 22 home runs and a .564 slugging percentage that would have ranked fourth in the AL if he’d had enough plate appearances to qualify for the leaderboards.

Angels slugger Mike Trout lauded Ohtani in a statement released by the team.

“I want to pass along my congratulations to Shohei for this special honor,” Trout said. “It’s great to see all of his hard work and effort recognized with this very prestigious award. All of us enjoyed playing alongside and watching Shohei excel as a two-way player and make history along the way. I have no doubt the best is yet to come!”

In 51.2 innings over 10 starts, he went 4-2 with a 3.31 ERA and 63 strikeouts, flashing the ace-caliber stuff that had teams eager to sign him primarily for his ability on the mound.

The bat was more impressive than anticipated, however, and Ohtani joined Babe Ruth as the only players to hit at least 20 home runs and pitch at least 50 innings in the same season. Ruth did that in 1919 — his last season as a pitcher. The Red Sox sold him to the Yankees that offseason, and he became a full-time outfielder in 1920.

Ohtani will serve as a full-time hitter in 2019, as he underwent Tommy John surgery the day after the regular season ended. The surgery will likely prevent him from pitching in 2019, but he should see significant time as the Angels’ designated hitter, though he might not be ready at the start of the season.

Ohtani, a phenom in Japan for the Nippon Ham Fighters, was the subject of an intense recruiting campaign after he was posted. Although he pitched just 25 innings in 2017 because of an ankle injury, in 2016 he had a 1.86 ERA in 140 innings and hit .322 with 22 home runs. Because he was younger than 25 years old, Ohtani was subject to international signing rules, which capped his bonus at $3.557 million and limited him to a rookie salary scale (the signing team also had to pay a $20 million posting fee to the Fighters).