Hitting or pitching, Angels’ rookie harkens back to the days of Ruth
Babe Ruths come along only once each century, and it remains to be seen if the 21st century Babe is anything more than a mere shadow of the 20th century Bambino. A Shambino?
The Original Babe is a tough act to follow, even a century later.
Shohei Ohtani is off to a good start. The Angels’ potentially marvelous pitcher/hitter from Japan made his bigleague pitching debut Sunday, in the warm sunshine at the Coliseum.
Ohtani had moments of brilliance in his six innings of work, survived one brief rough patch, and picked up the victory in the Angels’ 7-4 win.
The Original Babe would
approve. One hundred and four years earlier, Babe Ruth made his big-league pitching debut, as a 19-year-old for the Boston Red Sox. Ruth, who reported to the Red Sox from the minors the morning of that game, pitched seven innings and got the win as Boston beat the Cleveland Naps (yes, Naps) 4-3.
So far, so good for Ohtani, in following in the footsteps of the legend with whom his name is so often mentioned.
Nobody realistically expects Ohtani to have a Ruthian career, pitching or hitting. But what captures the imagination about Ohtani is that he is the first player since Ruth with legitimate aspirations to excel as a pitcher and an everyday hitter.
If Ohtani continues to pitch like he did Sunday, he’s going to be in the Angels’ rotation for a long time. He struck out three of the first four A’s hitters, on sliders and 98 mph heaters, before running into brief trouble, capped by Matt Chapman’s three-run homer on a slider.
“After that three-run shot,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, manager Mike Scioscia “came up to me and said I’m doing fine. Don’t let them score from here on out.”
So Ohtani obediently retired 14 of the final 15 batters he faced.
Ohtani, who said he was “excited and nervous” going into his first big-league start, didn’t let the butterflies beat him.
Working out of the stretch, with a nice, no-nonsense rhythm, the right-hander threw the easiest-looking 98 mph four-seamers you’ll ever see. The top four batters in the A’s order went 0-for-12 and did not hit a ball solidly.
Ohtani struck out six and walked one. And this was after a spring training in which he had limited mound work and got cuffed around pretty good. Maybe he rises to the occasion, like Babe Ruth did back in the day.
It’s not fair to compare anyone to Babe Ruth, but just for the fun of it:
Ohtani is 23. When Ruth was 23, exactly 100 years ago, he was in his fourth full bigleague season, and his final season as a full-time pitcher. He was 13-7 as a starter that year, with a 2.22 ERA.
That was the season Ruth hit himself out of a pitching job, knocking 11 homers, tied for the major-league lead (with Tillie Walker of the Philadelphia Athletics). Nobody else on the Boston team hit more than one home run.
Some experts believe that Ohtani eventually will follow the same route, hitting himself off the mound. In batting practice Saturday, Ohtani launched a home run to center, above the batter’s eye and above the row of glassed-in lux-boxes. It was only BP, but that’s the type of power you see only with hitters like Giancarlo Stanton.
And Ohtani, who is 6-foot-4 and long-legged, has 3.8-second speed to first base. If he can hit big-league pitching (he singled in his first at-bat on Opening Day), eventually he will be too valuable to pitch.
But Ohtani, like Ruth did in his day, might have to force the Angels’ hand to become a full-time hitter. Ruth, as a young pitcher, had to demand his BP hacks. When he hit homers in three consecutive games in 1918, Boston began to phase him out as a pitcher.
The Angels plan to rest Ohtani the day before and after each start, so it might be hard for him to find a hitting rhythm.
You won’t see Ohtani in the outfield much, either. He will DH. It would take a daring and unconventional manager to turn Ohtani loose as a pitcher and full-time outfielder, so we’ll probably never know if the kid could pull off that feat.
We do know that Ohtani, like the young Babe, is great for the game, a player with once-a-century potential.
It’s unlikely Ohtani (or anyone) will ever even attempt to match the Babe’s off-field exploits, with partying and women.
So he might not be the Bambino, but Ohtani will be fun to watch.