On any given night, Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani will make history. Friday night was the latest display of Ohtani’s record-setting power as his two home runs vs. the Orioles at Angel Stadium wowed the crowd. But it was his speed on the base paths that provided the walk-off 8-7 victory over the Orioles.
With the game tied at 7, Jared Walsh smacked a line drive to shallow right field for Ohtani to narrowly score from second base. Ohtani started the inning with a one-out walk then stole his 13th base of the season on the first pitch of Walsh’s at-bat.
Ohtani led off the third inning with his 29th home run of the season, giving him the most home runs before the All-Star break in Angels history. Entering the night, he was tied with teammate Mike Trout’s 2018 record of 28.
Ohtani’s first homer of the night cut into Baltimore’s four-run lead as he connected on the first pitch of the at-bat and drove the four-seam fastball to right-center field at a Statcast-projected 416 feet with an exit velocity of 104.5 mph.
The 26-year-old phenom mashed his second long ball of the night in his third at-bat, this time with opposite field power. The 400-foot homer gave Los Angeles the lead, with David Fletcher on first, as he achieved another historic milestone.
Ohtani became the first American League player to record 30 home runs and 10 stolen bases in his team’s first 81 games of the season. Sammy Sosa (Chicago, 1998) and Albert Pujols (St. Louis, 2009) are the only other two players to accomplish the feat.
Throughout Ohtani’s illustrious career, he’s often been compared to baseball legend Babe Ruth, who was also a two-way player. Ruth set a record in 1919 with the most home runs (29) in a single season with at least 10 games pitched. Ohtani shattered the 100-plus-year-old record with 12 pitching appearances and 30 homers for the Halos this season.
Shohei Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr. are heading to their first All-Star Game — as starters.
The three headline stars of 2021 dominated the second phase of fan voting at their respective positions to earn starting spots for the 91st All-Star Game scheduled for July 13 at Coors Field in Denver. Guerrero and Tatis were the leading vote-getters in each league, while Ohtani finished with the second-highest percentage in the American League.
Ohtani, voted in as the AL’s designated hitter, has thrilled fans all season with his two-way performance, long home runs and electrifying speed on the bases. He leads the majors with 28 home runs, including an MLB-leading 12 of 425 feet or more. He’s hitting .277, leads the majors with 49 extra-base hits and ranks third in the majors with 63 RBIs. Ohtani is also tied for the AL lead with four triples and has stolen 11 bases.
While Ohtani had a disastrous start pitching Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium when he failed to finish the first inning, he is still 3-1 with a 3.60 ERA, 83 strikeouts and a .194 batting average allowed over 60 innings. Not since Babe Ruth in 1919, and briefly with Ohtani in 2018 before he underwent Tommy John surgery, has the sport seen such a dominant two-way player.
“He’s a joy for this,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said after Ohtani hit two home runs on Tuesday. “He’s what baseball needs as both a player and as an example.”
Ohtani was on fire at the plate in June, hitting .309 with 13 home runs, including 11 homers in 13 games from June 15 to June 29.
“He’s a generational talent, that’s for sure,” said fellow All-Star starter Aaron Judge of the Yankees.
Ohtani has also committed to participate in the Home Run Derby on July 12, with Pete Alonso of the Mets defending his title.
The runner-up in the Home Run Derby as a rookie in 2019, Guerrero makes his first All-Star team after securing 75% of the vote among the three AL finalists at first base. The 22-year-old is in pursuit of a Triple Crown, leading the AL with 66 RBIs, ranking second to Ohtani with 26 home runs and trailing Michael Brantley in batting average, .340 to .336.
He gets to his first All-Star Game two years before his Hall of Fame father, as Vladimir Guerrero Sr. made the first of his nine All-Star appearances at age 24.
Tatis has had a roller coaster of a season, missing nine games early on after partially dislocating his shoulder on a swing on April 5, hitting .163 through his first 12 games and then later missing another 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19. When he has played, however, he has crushed the ball, leading the National League with 26 home runs in just 63 games while hitting .300/.387/.705 for an MLB-leading 1.092 OPS.
Tatis beat out Javier Baez of the Cubs and Brandon Crawford of the Giants at shortstop with 64% of the vote, matching Guerrero as a first-time All-Star at 22.
After an initial round of fan voting, the top three at each position entered the second phase. Ohtani beat out J.D. Martinez and Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter with 64% of the vote, while Guerrero outdistanced Yuli Gurriel and Jose Abreu with 75%.
The other starters:
AMERICAN LEAGUE
C: Salvador Perez, Royals (seventh All-Star Game). He earns his sixth starting assignment.
2B: Marcus Semien, Blue Jays (first). With 20 home runs, he beat out Jose Altuve.
3B: Rafael Devers, Red Sox (first). He’s hitting .288 with 20 home runs and an MLB-leading 69 RBIs.
SS: Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox (third). He edged out Bo Bichette and Carlos Correa to receive his second All-Star start.
OF: Mike Trout, Angels (ninth). He’s out until after the All-Star break with a calf injury and will be replaced in the starting lineup.
OF: Aaron Judge, Yankees (third). He also started in 2017 and 2018.
OF: Teoscar Hernandez, Blue Jays (first). He barely edged out the injured Byron Buxton for the third spot.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
C: Buster Posey, Giants (seventh). After sitting out 2020, Posey is hitting .330 with 12 home runs and will start for the first time since 2017.
1B: Freddie Freeman, Braves (fifth). The 2020 NL MVP has been heating up of late and beat out Max Muncy and Anthony Rizzo.
2B: Adam Frazier, Pirates (first). Frazier entered Thursday hitting .327 and becomes the first Pirates player voted in as a starter since Andrew McCutchen in 2015 (Josh Bell started at DH in 2019).
3B: Nolan Arenado, Cardinals (sixth). The eight-time Gold Glover will make his fourth straight start at third base for the NL, although with a new team this time.
OF: Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves (second). The 23-year-old leads the NL in runs while ranking among the league leaders in home runs and steals.
OF: Nick Castellanos, Reds (1st). He began Thursday leading the majors in batting average (.346), hits (102) and doubles (27).
OF: Jesse Winker, Reds (1st). Winker and Castellanos will become the first Reds outfielders to start an All-Star Game since Ken Griffey Jr. in 2007. Winker edged out Mookie Betts for the third spot.
The rest of the All-Star rosters, chosen through a combination of player voting and commissioner’s office selections, will be announced on July 4 at 5:30 ET on ESPN.
The Shohei Ohtani show moved to the mound Wednesday night in the Bronx. The Los Angeles Angels two-way star slugged three home runs in the first two games of his team’s series with the New York Yankees, giving him an MLB-best 28 long balls.
Ohtani’s performance as a pitcher at Yankee Stadium did not go nearly as well as his performance at the plate. The Yankees tagged Ohtani for seven runs in the first inning Wednesday night, capitalizing on four walks and a hit batsmen. Ohtani threw 41 pitches and only 20 strikes. He was pulled after facing nine batters and recording two outs.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re controlling the strike zone on him a little bit,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including SNY’s Andy Martino, prior to Wednesday’s game. “He will walk some guys.”
As they’ve done several times this season, the Angels forfeited the DH and let Ohtani hit for himself Wednesday. He batted leadoff and flew out to begin the game. It was not the first time he’s had an at-bat before taking the mound in a game this year, so it wasn’t an unfamiliar routine. Ohtani exited game, leaving the Angels with the pitcher’s spot atop the lineup.
Wednesday was Ohtani’s 24th career MLB start and the seven runs are a career-high. It’s the second time he’s failed to make it out of the first inning, joining his first start back from Tommy John surgery last year, when he allowed five runs and did not retire a batter. Wednesday’s disaster outing raised Ohtani’s season ERA from 2.58 to 3.60.
Control problems hampered Ohtani earlier this season. He walked 19 batters in his first four starts and 18 2/3 innings, then settled down and walked only 12 batters in his next seven starts and 40 2/3 innings. Wednesday’s outing is a step back and a red flag, though I think it’s too early to sound the alarms. One start does not constitute a trend. Bad days happen.
The good news: Ohtani touched 99 mph with his fastball and sat 95 mph Wednesday, so he appeared healthy. He just couldn’t locate at all. There is a heat wave in New York and television cameras showed him standing in front of the dugout air conditioner before going out to the mound, so perhaps he was uncomfortable in the heat.
The better news: Ohtani’s teammates picked him up. Seven relievers threw 8 1/3 scoreless innings, and Jared Walsh socked a game-tying grand slam against Aroldis Chapman in the ninth inning to take Ohtani off the hook. Chapman walked the bases loaded, then hung a slider to Walsh.
The grand slam is the first Chapman has allowed in his career. That was also only the fourth home run he’s surrendered to a lefty batter, and the first since 2017. Walsh hit two home runs in the game and has 20 on the season.
Luis Rengifo and Taylor Ward followed with run-scoring singles off Lucas Luetge to cap off the seven-run ninth inning, giving the Angels an 11-8 win (box score). At one point in the first inning Los Angeles had an 8.9 percent chance to win the game according to FanGraphs, and at one point in the eighth inning it was 1.2 percent. They rallied to erase Ohtani’s rough outing and bank a win.
Ohtani, 26, took an MLB leading 5.7 WAR into Wednesday’s game. He is the leading candidate to start at DH in the All-Star Game and could pitch in the game as well. MLB should do everything in its power to make that happen, even if it means bending the rules.
You can let your imagination run wild every which way when it comes to Shohei Ohtani and his alternate life as a Yankee.
Did you see him go deep twice more Tuesday night against Jameson Taillon at Yankee Stadium, giving him three homers in two games here, only for the Yankees to prevail, 11-5, ending their losing streak at four? Man, does he make it look easy, flicking balls over the Yankees’ inviting right-field wall. Would he make a run at Roger Maris’ American League and franchise record of 61 in pinstripes?
Then again, Ohtani’s path to his current status as AL Most Valuable Player favorite has not been linear, not unlike how many of the Yankees’ youngsters have swayed to and fro in their development. How would this demanding fan base have stomached Ohtani’s brutal 2020 (.190/.291/.366 slash line and 37.80 ERA), and how would Ohtani have stomached the resulting agita?
If nothing else, an Ohtani-Yankees union, even if it never attained this sort of peak in pinstripes, would’ve kept Giancarlo Stanton’s contract out of The Bronx, reason enough for the Steinbrenners to regard this swing and miss with great regret.
Ohtani now leads the major leagues with 28 homers, and in his penultimate at-bat Tuesday, he sent Brett Gardner to the center-field warning track, at 388 feet considerably deeper than his first homer (356), for a long seventh-inning fly out; he grounded out to first to end the game, Luke Voit barely beating the speedster to the bag. He is a marvel offensively, a bundle of athleticism and excitement, and oh by the way, he’ll start on the mound — and hit — for the Angels on Wednesday night.
Shohei Ohtani belts the second of his two homers in the Yankees’ 11-5 win over the Angels.Bill Kostroun
“To see what he’s doing this year, especially the last two nights, is pretty impressive,” said Aaron Judge, who knocked a two-run homer for the Yankees. “It feels like any pitch that’s over the plate, it’s going to get hit and it’s going to get hit hard. … He’s a generational talent, that’s for sure. We’re excited to see him on the mound [Wednesday].”
“He is what baseball needs, both as a player and as an example,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said. “He’s all about the moment. He’s prepared, he’s ingratiating. … I enjoy watching him enjoy playing baseball.”
He also, through no fault of his own, is a key figure in Yankees history.
Remember the positive vibes percolating through Yankees Universe following the 2017 season? Sure, they had fallen short to the Astros, lasting seven games in the AL Championship Series, but their future shined so bright, so many young, talented players driving the club’s return to the playoffs. And with word that Ohtani would leave his native Japan to put himself up for bidding, the Yankees loomed as the perceived favorite due to their immense popularity in the Far East.
However, shortly after the Yankees sent their recruitment materials to Ohtani’s agency, they received word that they didn’t so much as make the first cut, a huge disappointment. Did that disappointment fuel them toward pursuing another star in Stanton, albeit one costing more than 10 times as much as Ohtani?
Think of how DJ LeMahieu’s hitting approach, heavy on contact, balanced the Yankees’ offense when he arrived on the scene in 2019. Now envision Ohtani — lefty, fast and a pitcher to boot — and the sort of balance he’d provide, all the more so with the Yankees able to diversify their commitment to Stanton.
“It seems like he’s gone to another level,” Aaron Boone said of Ohtani. “There’s a little bit of fear when he walks up there.”
Instead, the Yankees (41-38) find themselves adrift, occupying fourth place in the AL East, their general manager saying Tuesday afternoon, “We suck right now,” the entire Baby Bombers era teetering before they so much as reached a World Series.
Maybe that still would be the case given Ohtani’s circuitous journey to greatness and New York’s hard edge. Definitely, though, the Yankees’ future now would be brighter.
For the first time since the implementation of the designated hitter, we have witnessed a true two-way player in a game. On the national stage of ESPN on Sunday Night Baseball, the Angels started Shohei Ohtani on the mound and slotted him in the batting order in the two-hole.
It started off with a bang and ended negatively and in truly bizarre fashion.
This was the first time since 1976 that an AL team willingly gave up its DH spot (via James Smyth) and even then the pitcher was hitting eighth. In fact, as the ESPN broadcast pointed out, this was the first time since 1903 that a pitcher hit second in a batting order.
On the mound, Ohtani was pumping gas from the get-go, hitting 98 with his first pitch and hitting as high as 101 on the radar in the first inning. He didn’t have much command with the off-speed stuff, but his fastball was enough to get the job done as he worked around a two-out walk.
Then, it was Ohtani’s turn to hit and, boy, did he hit. On the first pitch he saw, he hit it 450 feet:
Admit it, you thought it was an exaggeration to say Ohtani could hit 101 and 450 in the same game. And get this: Through that at-bat, Ohtani now owned the hardest thrown pitch by a starter this season and the hardest hit ball (115.2 mph) of the season by any player, reports ESPN Stats and Info.
No starting pitcher has homered anywhere in the first seven spots in the batting order since Babe Ruth in 1933 (via Pitching Ninja). In the last 50 years, only eight times has a pitcher homered in the first inning.
Things were going beautifully for Ohtani through four innings. He was 1 for 3, but his second at-bat he absolutely scorched a lineout to center field. He had also worked four scoreless innings on the mound.
Things sort of unraveled on the mound in the fifth inning, though. With two outs and a runner on base, Ohtani walked both Adam Eaton and Jose Abreu. He was able to get Yoan Moncada on a full-count, swinging strikeout, but the ball got away, catcher Max Stassi’s throw to first base to beat Moncada got away and then the throw home to prevent a second run from scoring also got away while Abreu’s slide unintentionally took Ohtani out.
Yes, two runs scored on a strikeout.
It was now 3-3 and Ohtani’s night was done.
His final lines:
1 for 3, HR, R, RBI
4 2/3 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 7 K
There’s nothing really to break down on offense. He hit the ball hard and looked great. On the mound, he struggled with command at times and was left out there three batters too long by a manager seemingly dead set on getting him a win. The stuff was absolutely nasty. He was still throwing around 100 with off-speed stuff in the 90s in his last inning. He just totally lost command at the end, when he was probably tired.
Overall, this has to be considered a success that lays the foundation for his future stints on the mound. In the meantime, he’ll continue to be slotted as a DH when he is not pitching.
Shohei Ohtani had a night to remember in his first pitching start of the 2021 season. Though it ended on a fluke play where multiple runs scored, there’s no question that, especially early on, the start brought all of the electricity that fans could have hoped for with the two-way star on the mound and at the plate.
It was clear we were in for a historic evening when the Angels’ lineup came out, confirming what manager Joe Maddon had alluded to all week: Ohtani was batting second during his first pitching start of the year. He became the first player to start both at pitcher and in the No. 2 spot in the order since Jack Dunleavy in 1903. The only other player to accomplish that since at least 1901? Watty Lee, in 1902.
1 — In this game, Ohtani threw 101 mph and hit a homer at 115.2 mph that went 451 feet. Any of those numbers, individually, would be notable for a player in a game. But for the same player to do that in the same game? Unheard of. Indeed, it was just the 40th team game in the Statcast Era where there was both a 115+ mph batted ball and 100+ mph pitch thrown from any player on that team. According to research by MLB.com’s manager of research & development, Jason Bernard, Ohtani became the first player with a 110+ mph batted ball and a 100+ mph pitch in the same game tracked by Statcast (since 2015). There had been nine instances if we lower the exit velocity minimum to 105 mph instead: Noah Syndergaard (eight times) and Aroldis Chapman.
2 — Prior to Ohtani on Sunday, only one pitcher had thrown a 100+ mph pitch and hit even a 100+ mph home run in the same game: Syndergaard, on May 27, 2015, May 11, 2016 (two 100 mph home runs), and Aug. 16, 2016.
3 — Ohtani threw nine pitches at 100+ mph, the second-most by an Angels starter in a game in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008), trailing only Ervin Santana’s 10 on June 25, 2008. He’s now thrown 16 pitches at 100+ mph in his career. Santana, in that ‘08 start, is the only other Angels pitcher to reach 100 mph as a starter in that span.
4 — He topped out at 101.1 mph, tying for the fastest pitch of his career. That’s also the fastest pitch thrown by a starter this season. It’s an even more impressive pitch velocity reading when you consider that Ohtani’s 115.2 mph homer is the hardest-hit long ball so far in 2021. Sure, we’re only four days into the season, but we’ve already seen many aces pitch and there have been plenty of home runs.
5 — Given that Ohtani produced both the 101.1 mph pitch and 115.2 mph homer in the same game, leading all participants in the contest in each category, this was the 11th instance where the same pitcher had the hardest thrown pitch and the hardest hit batted ball in the same game since Statcast started tracking in 2015, according to Bernard. The last pitcher to do it was Syndergaard on May 29, 2019, with a 108.4 mph double and a 100.4 mph pitch.
6 — Ohtani’s homer wasn’t just the fastest of the year — it is also the hardest-hit batted ball by a pitcher tracked by Statcast, surpassing a 112.5 mph home run from Madison Bumgarner in 2017. It’s also the hardest-hit home run by an Angels player tracked by Statcast.
7 — The Statcast implications are clear, but it’s worth noting there’s history here that goes back prior to ‘15. When he homered, Ohtani became the first American League starting pitcher to homer against an AL team since Roric Harrison on the final day of the 1972 season — and the final regular-season day without a designated hitter in the junior circuit. He also became the first starting pitcher since at least 1901 with a home run batting first or second in a game.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Shohei Ohtani threw a baseball 101 mph in the top of the first, then hit a baseball 115 mph a half-inning later, a stirring start to a historic Sunday night for the Los Angeles Angels’ two-way sensation.
Ohtani, pitching and hitting in the same game for the first time in his career, retired three of the first four Chicago White Sox batters he faced in the top half of the first inning, throwing three pitches in the triple digits — including a 101 mph fastball to Adam Eaton, which was followed by a nasty splitter in the dirt to record a strikeout.
In the bottom half, Ohtani turned on the first pitch he saw from White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease — a chest-high, 97 mph fastball — and launched it 451 feet to right field, giving himself some early run support.
Ohtani’s pitch to Eaton (officially 100.6 mph) was the fastest-thrown pitch of any starting pitcher this season, and his home run (with an exit velocity of 115.2 mph) was the hardest-hit homer of the season by any player.
Ohtani, who underwent Tommy John surgery following his rookie season, had accumulated only 53⅓ innings as a pitcher since his major league debut in 2018. But Angels manager Joe Maddon has committed to him as a two-way player in 2021 and has lifted a lot of the restrictions that were previously put in place, which kept him from being in the lineup the day before, the day after and the day of his starts.
On Sunday, he became the first starting pitcher to bat second in a game since Jack Dunleavy in 1903.
MESA, Ariz. — Shohei Ohtani featured an upper-90s fastball and a wipeout splitter in his spring pitching debut Friday, a 41-pitch outing that seemed to validate the Los Angeles Angels’ hopes that he can contribute as a two-way player this season.
Ohtani, pitching two days after unleashing a 486-foot home run to straightaway center field, struck out five of the 10 Oakland Athletics batters he faced, the last three on splitters that dropped well below the strike zone.
The right-hander issued two walks, gave up three hits — two of which went for extra bases — and was removed with two outs in the second inning because the Angels had set a 40-pitch limit. But Ohtani was around the strike zone far more frequently than during his short pitching stint last summer, and he displayed a cleaner, more repeatable delivery, which Angels manager Joe Maddon said he was hoping to see.
“The big thing for him — the success is gonna be repetition of delivery and knowing where his fastball is going consistently,” Maddon said postgame. “If that occurs, he’s really gonna take off.”
Ohtani, 26, has acted as a two-way player for only two months over the past three years, in April and May of his 2018 rookie season, before having Tommy John surgery. He spent the rest of the 2018 season and all of 2019 serving as the Angels’ primary designated hitter, then struggled in his return to two-way action during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season. Ohtani made only two rough starts before straining the flexor-pronator mass near his surgically repaired elbow, limiting him to hitting only.
After the season — he batted .190 and had a 37.80 ERA — Ohtani underwent an aggressive offseason regimen in which he got into more game-like situations as a hitter and pitcher, revamped his diet and workout regimen and sought advice from third parties, including, sources said, experts at the renowned baseball facility Driveline. Ohtani’s progress showed during the workout portion of spring training and is now manifesting itself in game settings.
Ohtani, speaking through his interpreter, said he mistakenly started “cutting” some of his pitches while overthrowing with runners in scoring position, but he was pleased with his splitter as an out pitch and he believes his velocity will continue to rise as the season progresses.
Maddon has said he wants to ease some of the restrictions, such as when Ohtani’s turn comes as part of a six-man rotation rather than on a certain day each week. Maddon also is open to the possibility of putting him in the lineup the day after his start, which hadn’t been the case.
“The big thing was to put him in charge of his own career and not try to dictate so much to him, permit his athleticism to take over and not be so concerned about getting hurt,” Maddon said of the reasoning behind more aggressive usage. “He’s done this in the past, he should know himself better than we do, and we did not want to create these limitations or set guidelines that we didn’t know if they would work or not.”
