Home run and loss for Ohtani

At bat, he hits 44th homer of season. On the mound, he struggles and suffers first loss since late May.

Shohei Ohtani hit a ball extremely hard, threw a handful of extremely hard pitches, did something that hadn’t been done in 51 years, and left Friday night’s Angels loss in dismay.

Such is the oddity of Ohtani, his groundbreaking double duty, his immense talent and the starcrossed team for which he plays.

The Houston Astros knocked around Ohtani for six runs and nine hits in 3 1⁄3 innings. Despite committing four errors, the Astros coasted to a 10-5 victory at Minute Maid Park.

In the first inning, Ohtani lined a full-count fastball 114.7 mph into the right-field seats for his MLB-leading 44th home run. On the mound it was a different story.

Despite touching 98 mph on five four-seam fastballs, Ohtani relied on a slider that too often flattened rather than darted, a splitter he commanded sporadically and a hohum cutter.

Ohtani (9-2) had thrown the four-seamer 47.5% and the slider 19.9% of the time this season, but Friday he threw only 25 four-seamers while throwing 32 sliders, 12 splitters and eight cutters among his 77 pitches. Only three times did an Astros batter swing and miss and he struck out just one. Ohtani’s ERA jumped from 2.97 to 3.36 and he was tagged for his first loss since May 28.

“I feel like they were sitting on my cutters and sliders and before I could make any adjustments, they had runners on base and were scoring,” Ohtani said.

In his two at-bats after the home run Ohtani was walked by Astros pitcher Framber Valdez.

Ohtani’s second walk was noteworthy because it was intentional, loading the bases in the fourth. It marked the first time since Jim Kaat in 1970 that a pitcher was issued an intentional walk.