Ohtani hits 100
Japanese newcomer strong in pitching debut
OAKLAND – Shohei Ohtani had a chance for a too short first big-league pitching start, but the Los Angeles Angels’ Japanese newcomer rallied after a second-inning stumble. The right-hander retired 14 of the final 15 men he faced and earned the win in the Angels’ 7-4 victory over the Athletics.
Ohtani, who’d made his batting debut with a 1-for-5 game Thursday against the A’s, became the first player since 1920 to start separate games as a hitter and as a pitcher in the first 10 days of a season when, at 1:13 PT Sunday, he threw a 96 mph fastball for a strike to Marcus Semien.
The first four A’s batters went down in order, Ohtani had an early 2-0 lead and had hit 100 mph on the radar gun before Oakland got three hits in a row in the second inning, the capper being a three-run bomb from Matt Chapman, who jumped on an 83 mph slider.
From there, however, the A’s didn’t have much of a chance against Ohtani, whose second wind including streaks of six and eight consecutive men retired before he turned the ball over to reliever Cam Bedrosian to start the seventh.
“I’m very happy with my effort,” Ohtani, 23, said after four relievers recorded the last nine outs. “I’m most happy that the team won. After the home run, (manager Mike) Scioscia talked to me and said, ‘You’re doing OK.’ ”
During spring training, Ohtani pitched in two Cactus League games with a 27.00 ERA, and even when pitching in minor league games, he’d never thrown more than 85 pitches. On Sunday he had thrown 84 pitches through five innings. But with the Angels holding a 4-3 lead, Scioscia wasn’t hesitant to send Ohtani out to pitch the sixth.
“You have to look at Arizona through a different lens,” Scioscia says. “Breaking balls break once you leave there.”
Much is made of a comparison of Ohtani to Babe Ruth, the most famous combination hitter-pitcher in sports history. But the last players to start games both as a hitter and a pitcher in the first 10 games of a season were the Red Sox’s Joe Bush and the Dodgers’ Clarence Mitchell in 1920.
Before he was done, Ohtani threw 92 pitches, 63 of them strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes 14 times in 22 tries.
In the second, the A’s got hits from Matt Joyce on a 98 mph fastball and Stephen Piscotty on a 100 mph heater before Chapman crushed a slider.