Japanese phenom gets first taste of Minute Maid
In lieu of pitching duel, Morton, Ohtani can’t find plate in abbreviated outings
Los Angeles Angels rookie pitcher Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s most notable two-way player since Babe Ruth’s Red Sox days, threw the fastest pitch in the majors this season — clocked at 101 mph — but wound up with a no-decision in his Houston debut Tuesday night.
A game advertised so much for its starting pitchers, the Japanese twoway phenomenon against a reinvented World Series-winning veteran whose miniscule ERA was the lowest in the majors, left ample to be desired.
Neither Shohei Ohtani nor Astros starter Charlie Morton finished the sixth inning of the Astros’ 8-7 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park.
The two men combined for 10 walks and issued three home runs, each departing with four earned runs on their line, leaving their offenses to work against two stretched bullpens.
The Angels were without their closer, Keynan Middleton, after three consecutive days of pitching. Morton’s early exit forced manager A.J. Hinch to deploy one of his most trusted relievers in the fifth.
Morton produced the worst start of his season and his most erratic since July 14, 2017. Not since then had he issued five walks in an outing. His first four starts this season saw just six.
Tuesday, he walked five in four innings and was unable to record an out in the fifth. Mike Trout and Andrelton Simmons hit solo home runs off of him.
“Couldn’t throw my fastball for a strike,” Morton said. “You back yourself into a corner, guys get on whether it’s a hit or a walk and you’re trying to be more fine, make better pitches. I just kept falling behind guys. Really no secondary pitch I was going to had any consistency.”
In relief of Morton, Brad Peacock required 30 pitches to spin two perfect
innings. Joe Smith was summoned for the seventh. The team was now afforded a two-run lead, one the sidewinder promptly surrendered.
After a one-out walk to Ian Kinsler, Smith induced Trout’s swing and miss on a tailing slider for the second out.
Three straight two-out hits followed. Simmons’ second home run — a three-run job off a belthigh slider that curved just inside the left-field foul pole — was the most damaging, the hit from which the Astros were unable to recover.
“I sucked,” Smith said. “Two outs and a runner on first and it turns into that. It’s never good. I make a mistake and end up giving up a homer to Andrelton, and I didn’t make my pitches.”
The Astros’ go-ahead run stood at third base in the seventh and at first base in the eighth, neither moving home.
An Astro reached base in every inning, and the team equaled its seasonhigh with 14 hits. Eleven runners were stranded.
“They took more advantage of their opportunities,” Hinch said of the Angels.
The seventh inning produced two runs, the last after Marwin Gonzalez’s bloop, bases-loaded single against Justin Anderson, the Houston native who made his major league debut against his hometown team Monday.
Tuesday, Anderson preserved the Angels’ lead. Derek Fisher struck out and George Springer lined into a 5-4 force play to strand the bases loaded.
Cam Bedrosian tossed a scoreless ninth, his only hiccup a two-out walk to Gonzalez. Fisher watched strike three to end the game, unable to replicate his earlier, slump-busting heroics against Ohtani.
Though they scored little, the Astros labored Ohtani. He threw a 24-pitch second inning and a 20pitch third. Both resulted in a man in scoring position but produced just one run. His 25-pitch fifth inning produced two.
“We made him work, we put a little bit of pressure on him,” Hinch said. “I thought we had really good at-bats given that we hadn’t really seen him. The type of pitcher he is, especially with that split, can put a little fear in you. He’s got good stuff.”
Facing Gonzalez to lead off the fifth, Ohtani ran the count full. He offered a 97 mph fastball at the knees. Gonzalez did not swing. Home plate umpire Eric Cooper deemed it a ball. Angels manager Mike Scioscia barreled to the top step of his dugout to protest. Ohtani hung his head.
Fisher, the nine-hole hitter, arrived. Eighteen of his previous 19 at-bats were without a hit. Hinch said Monday the backup outfielder needed a “sense of urgency” to remedy the malaise that overtook his offensive approach.
To begin his at-bat, Ohtani threw a four-seam fastball. Fisher bludgeoned it to dead center field, nearly over the ivy wall that replaced Tal’s Hill for a two-run homer — his first of the season. The Astros’ deficit was trimmed to one.
“I’ve been really good with being able to stay with a routine and make some adjustments,” Fisher said of his recent struggles, “and it was definitely good to help the team today, for sure.”
Ohtani threw 51⁄3 innings of four-run baseball. His command eluded him in spurts — only 55 of his 98 pitches were strikes — and he walked a seasonhigh five batters. Two of the five men he walked scored.
On an 83 degree evening, his fastball velocity was the best he has possessed since arriving in Los Angeles.
Statcast clocked his fastball over 100 mph for the first time in his major league career. Twice he threw a 100.1 mph pitch to Gonzalez in the second. Josh Reddick swung over another at 100.6 in the third inning.
Against Reddick in the fifth inning, with the tying run at first base, Ohtani fired his 87th pitch at 101 mph — the fastest thrown by any starter in the majors this season. On his 88th, Reddick poked it to right field for a harmless fly out, ending Ohtani’s fifth laborious inning.
“Someone we haven’t seen, someone that nobody’s seen,” Fisher said. “I think the more we see him and the more we’re able to put together a game plan and make adjustments, we’ll be fine.”
Ohtani had early trouble harnessing the command of his splitter, the putaway pitch Jose Altuve claimed on Monday was the best he’d ever seen. None of his first four found the strike zone.
Reddick swung over the fifth for a second-inning strikeout, the first of Ohtani’s seven punchouts. All but three came on his splitter.
Correa and Altuve fanned on sliders. Bregman swung through three consecutive four-seam fastballs in the sixth. He held Correa and Altuve hitless and struck them out five times.
A three-pitch strikeout of Bregman ended Ohtani’s evening. Seven pitches from Jose Alvarez nearly rendered his performance moot. He fell behind Brian McCann 3-0 before filling the count.
McCann spoiled a fourseam fastball foul. Alvarez offered another elevated one. McCann lifted it into his bullpen, his first home run against a southpaw this season. He hit just five against lefthandeders last year. The Astros led 5-4 and, for the first time in Ohtani’s brief career, he was handed a no-decision.
Alone inside the visitor’s dugout, a train full of oranges barreling along the left-field tracks within his earshot, Ohtani gave a last look at the field he departed. The lead with which he exited was gone, soon to be regained again.
“We scored a lot of runs, the game didn’t start out very well for us, and we fight back,” Hinch said. “They separate again, we fight back again. Hardfought loss if there ever is one.”