MESA, Arizona. – Shohei Ohtani featured a 90s fastball and wipeout splitter on his debut in the spring pitch on Friday, a 41-pitch launch that seemed to validate the Los Angeles Angels’ hopes of being able to contribute as a bidirectional player this season.
Ohtani, launching two days after launching a 486-foot home run into the center of the field immediately, eliminated five of the 10 Oakland Athletics hitters he faced, the last three in dividers that fell well below the strike zone.
The right-hand took two strides, gave up three strokes – two of which went to extra bases – and was removed with two eliminations in the second inning because the Angels set a limit of 40 shots. But Ohtani was in the strike zone much more often than during his short pitching season last summer and exhibited a cleaner and repeatable delivery than Angels coach Joe Maddon said he hoped to see.
“The big thing for him – success will be a repeat delivery and knowing where his fastball is going consistently,” said Maddon after the game. “If it does, it will really take off.”
Ohtani, 26, has served as a bidirectional player for just two months in the past three years, in April and May of his 2018 debut season, before undergoing Tommy John’s surgery. He spent the rest of the 2018 season and the entire 2019 year serving as the Angels’ top designated hitter, then strove to return to bidirectional action during the shortened 2020 season for COVID-19. Ohtani took just two sharp starts before stretching the flexor-pronator mass near his surgically repaired elbow, limiting him to just hitting.
After the season – he hit 0.190 and had an ERA of 37.80 – Ohtani went through an aggressive regime out of season, in which he got into situations more like the game as a hitter and pitcher, reformulated his diet and training regime and he sought advice from third parties, including, said sources, experts at the renowned Driveline baseball unit. Ohtani’s progress was shown during the spring training part and is now manifesting itself in the game settings.
Ohtani, speaking through his interpreter, said he mistakenly started to “cut” some of his pitches by knocking down runners in scoring position, but was satisfied with his divider as an external pitch and believes that his speed will continue to increase over the course of the season.
Maddon 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 particular day of the week. Maddon is also open to the possibility of putting him on the roster the day after his departure, which was not the case.
“The important thing was to put him in charge of his own career and not try to dictate him too much, allow his athletic ability to take over and not worry so much about getting hurt,” said Maddon of the reasoning behind more use. aggressive. “He did this in the past, he should have known himself better than we did, and we didn’t want to create these limitations or set guidelines that we didn’t know if they would work or not.”