Yesterday, Shohei Ohtani May Have Had The Single Greatest Day We've Ever Seen By A Baseball Player
I'm very, very, very sick of great players coming to Comerica to play the Tigers and using that series as a way of boosting their Hall of Fame resumes. I love the Tigers, but holy shit balls, am I tired of seeing them get rocked. And the Tigers never play well against the Angels. Since 2017, they haven't played well against anybody, but even at their peak, the Tigers always lost to the Angels. It was a rite of passage. It didn't matter if we had two MVPs on our team. You could always count on us losing two of three in the summer months to Los Angeles at some point. So I'm upset by the result, but goddamn, do I respect the talent. Because of a rain out on Wednesday, the Tigers had a doubleheader yesterday against the Los Angeles Angels, and Ohtani did something that only he could do.
In the first game, he threw a complete game, one-hit shutout, the first shut piece of his career. It was one of those starts where the command matched the stuff. "Overwhelming" is the first word that comes to mind. You got the impression Ohtani could've pitched 12 scoreless if you wanted to. The Tigers offense looked like a JV squad. But the one thing that the Tigers had done in the first two games of the series against the Angels was keep Shohei Ohtani in check at the plate.
That changed in the 2nd game yesterday when Ohtani went deep twice, including one of the most impressive home runs I've ever seen at Comerica Park. I don't know the exit velocity on this homer, but I will put the over/under at 205.5.
The individual achievement will speak for itself. Ohtani is about to run away with his second MVP, but we overlook the physical toll this takes on a player. Outside of having to carry an entire organization on his back, Ohtani doesn't appear to be fully healthy, which is a testament to his talent and willpower. He's had finger blister issues on the mound, though they did not pop up yesterday when he was out there dealing, and we've seen him grimace a few times on his backswing over the last several weeks. It doesn't bother him. The sho goes on.
This will make for an interesting last two months of the season. The Los Angeles Angels have officially thrown their hat in the ring. They are going for it. While I think their decision to buy at the deadline is remarkably shortsighted, it makes the Angels a more exciting team for the home stretch. We can go back and forth about the merits of the Angels decision. Still, pending some disaster, Shohei Ohtani will be able to do something this September that he hasn't been able to do his entire career: play meaningful baseball. His lack of big games is no fault of his own, but the Angels have made themselves substantially more relevant in the short term. This is where I do have to give them some credit. Outside of Trout and Ohtani, I've found the Los Angeles Angels to be so milquetoast and dull over the last several years. That's about to change because either this Hail Mary pass works, and the Angels make a deep run through October, or it'll be one of the most spectacular blowups in Major League history, and there's no in-between. But either way, we get to see Shohei Ohtani at the forefront of the baseball world, which is always worth celebrating, even if it's against my Tigers.
