Ohtani dominant in Angels’ home debut
ANAHEIM – Shohei Ohtani could not reward Los Angeles Angels fans with a home run on Sunday, as they had probably grown used to from his three previous appearances in a home uniform.
They would have to settle for a brilliant pitching performance instead.
Making his first start at Angel Stadium, the Japanese two-way sensation threw six perfect innings and struck out 11 before yielding a one-out single in the seventh to Marcus Semi- en as the Angels defeated the Oakland Athletics 6-1.
In front of a rare April sellout crowd of 44,742, Ohtani unleashed a fastball that touched 100 mph and paired it with a devilish splitter and an effective slider. He overwhelmed Oakland hitters from the get-go, striking out the first three batters he faced and six of the first nine.
In the middle innings, fans started getting up when Ohtani would reach strike two on a batter, anticipating a K. He complied time and again, striking out the side again in the fifth. He finished with 12 strikeouts, a hit and a walk in 91 pitches — 59 strikes — over seven scoreless innings.
“That’s as good a game,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia says, “as you could ever see pitched.”
Suddenly, Ohtani’s quest to become the first player to pitch and hit regularly in nearly a century doesn’t look so quixotic.
Ohtani, who homered in three consecutive games as a DH last week, yielded three runs on three hits over six innings a week ago Sunday to notch his first major league win, as the Angels
prevailed 7-4 in Oakland. In that game, he retired 14 of the last 15 batters he faced.
On Sunday at Angel Stadium, the only Athletics batter to make solid contact off Ohtani through the first six innings was Khris Davis, who led off the second with a liner to center field, caught by Mike Trout on the run. The rest of the A’s barely made a peep until Semien’s line single.
“I was conscious of the no-hitter, but I wasn’t really thinking about the perfect game,” Ohtani said. “I figured they’d get a hit sooner or later. All I was thinking was, once I gave up that hit how I was going to react. I gave up the walk right after, so that’s something I need to work on.”
A’s manager Bob Melvin had cautioned before the game that, while seeing Ohtani for the second time in a week could benefit the club’s hitters, it was no guarantee of success.
“When you’re that talented, it could be just as difficult the 15th time you face him,” Melvin said. “But at least they kind of know a little bit what to expect, whereas the first time there were a lot of unknowns.”
Knowing Ohtani a little better proved of no help.
Because the Angels don’t want to lose the designated hitter in his American League starts, Ohtani did not get to bat on Sunday, depriving the Los Angeles offense of its top hitter by batting average (.389) and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.310) as well as its coleader in home runs (three).
No matter.
Ohtani’s teammates provided him two first-inning runs against Oakland starter Kendall Graveman and added on against him and the bullpen.
After signing with the Angels in the offseason as the game’s most coveted free agent, Ohtani endured a rough spring that brought into question his ability to transition right away from Japan to Major League Baseball. He hit .125 in 32 at-bats and pitched to a 27.00 ERA.
Some batters suggested that, while Ohtani threw hard, his fastball was straight and hittable. That hasn’t been the case once the regular season started.
“When you have good off-speed pitches, it makes that fastball effective no matter what,” Semien said before Sunday’s game. “If it’s 99 and you have two or three awesome pitches to supplement that for strikes, then you have a pretty good pitch on your hands.”
Indeed, Sunday’s start was more or less a pick-your-poison proposition for A’s hitters.
“He had good command of his fastball,” Angels catcher Martin Maldonado says, “so the hitters felt pressure to swing at the splitter.”
Ohtani, 23, has fashioned a 1.38 ERA through his first two starts, with 18 strikeouts, two walks and four hits allowed in 13 innings.
And after ditching his high leg kick for a toe tap in his hitting stance late in spring training, Ohtani has been a terror at the plate, going 7-for-18 with seven RBI in four games.
Ohtani has been sitting the day before and the day after he pitches, so his next chance to extend his stretch of homering in three consecutive games will come Tuesday on the road against the Texas Rangers.
Manager Mike Scioscia said balanc- ing Ohtani’s unique schedule has not proved difficult so far. “As of the first couple of weeks it has been very manageable, but we have a long way to go and we have to be flexible,” Scioscia said.
“(General manager) Billy Eppler has put a lot of time into seeing what the possibilities were and what is really feasible, and as we get more information on how this is working, we’ll adjust as we have to.”
The possibilities now seem endless. Perhaps Maldonado put it best when he described Ohtani this way: “He never looks like he’s out of place. He looks like a hitter when he’s batting and looks like a pitcher when he’s pitching. It’s impressive. We haven’t seen that before.”