Angels waste another sharp start by Ohtani
He strikes out eight in six scoreless innings, but the offense is shut out until the ninth.
OAKLAND — Monday was a good night if you were a Shohei Ohtani fan.
The two-way star pitched six scoreless innings, striking out eight while yielding just three hits and one walk. He hit a double in his second
at-bat. And for the sixth time this year, he played in the outfield as well, spending the seventh inning in right in order to get an extra trip to the plate.
It was maddening, however, if you were an Angels fan too, the team squandering Ohtani’s gem in a 4-1 loss to the Oakland Athletics.
Three batters after Ohtani left a scoreless game, the Angels immediately fell behind, as reliever Steve Cishek walked two before giving up a decisive threerun homer to Ramón Laureano.
Matt Olson tacked on an insurance blast in the eighth, and an Angels rally ended in the ninth on a long, running catch in foul ground by Matt Chapman.
It wasn’t the first time such a script — Ohtani playing great, the Angels losing anyway — played out this year, and it provided another example of why the team with the clear-cut fa
vorite for American League most valuable player is 46-47 with the trade deadline less than two weeks away.
“If we can get on a bit of a roll, it changes the narrative regarding what can happen at the end of this month or not,” manager Joe Maddon said. “We want to get that going.”
Monday, they missed an opportunity to do so. Here are three observations from the game:
Ohtani’s scoreless start
Over 14 starts on the mound this season, Ohtani has shown different ways to navigate a lineup.
Sometimes, he leans heavily on a fastball-splitter combination. Other times, his slider can be his most dominant pitch. Lately, he’s incorporated a steady diet of cutters too.
On Monday, he used a little bit of everything, his approach morphing as the game went on, from a combination of sliders and cutters to a string of upper-90s fastballs to a sprinkling of curveballs and splitters at the end.
“He’s inventive,” Maddon said. “Game in progress, he started doing different things based on what he thought they may be expecting. His velocity was way up. Slider good, cutter good. And eventually found the split at the very end. Just another special performance.”
Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, added: “It’s how I’m feeling during the game, which pitches are working. That factors in a lot.”
Only twice did Ohtani get into trouble, after giving up doubles in the second and third innings.
But both times he dialed up the velocity, unleashing upper-90s heaters (he maxed out at 99.3 mph) to help retire all four batters he faced with a runner in scoring position.
It was the first time this year he pitched six scoreless innings, the 11th time he’d given up two runs or fewer, and he lowered his earnedrun average to 3.21. Yet, the Angels dropped to 8-6 on days Ohtani takes the mound.
They didn’t score until the ninth inning, when Brandon Marsh, who had the first three hits of his career, drove an RBI double into the left-field corner.
Trout makes the trip
For the first time since suffering a calf strain May 17, center fielder Mike Trout went on the road with the team.
Trout’s return still isn’t imminent, according to Maddon, who confirmed Trout still needs to go on a rehab assignment before returning.
A date for that rehab assignment or Trout’s big league return is unclear, but Maddon said he liked that Trout wanted to accompany the team this week.
Before Monday’s game, Trout spent more than half an hour jogging and doing agility drills in the outfield with team trainers.
Upton begins rehab assignment
Outfielder Justin Upton began a rehab assignment with triple-A Salt Lake with a bang, hitting a home run on the first pitch of the game.
Maddon said Upton will play with Salt Lake again Tuesday, then be reevaluated Wednesday when both the Angels and Salt Lake have off days.