OC Register: Alexander: Ohtani gives fans their money’s worth, and then some

[AngelsWin.com]

ANAHEIM — Before Shohei Ohtani’s second big league start as a pitcher Sunday, I was toying with this concept: The way he’d been hitting the ball in his starts as a DH for the Angels, if you were showing up to see him only pitch you’d almost feel cheated.

Never mind.

The only ticket-holders to Sunday’s game against the Oakland A’s who may have felt regret were those who, for whatever reason, couldn’t use their tickets. Those who showed up among the announced crowd of 44,742 got their money’s worth, and then some, watching Ohtani merely pitch in the Angels’ 6-1 victory.

As for those who will claim they were in the ballpark Sunday for his first home start as an Angel? Make them show their tickets and prove it.

Yes, we are only two starts into Ohtani’s big league career, and in fact two outings against the A’s. (Or should we call them the AAAA’s? You know, too good for Triple-A, not good enough … etc.)

But I think it’s safe to say this now can officially be labeled the Ohtani Phenomenon, and it is something that goes way beyond the club’s merchandise sales or marketing agreements with Japanese companies. Baseball’s only two-way player is actually pulling this off, at least so far.

As a hitter he has three home runs, which are as many as the Marlins have as a team and more than the Tigers or Royals. (And, shall we say, one fewer than the Dodgers.)

As a pitcher, he now has pitched 13 innings, with 18 strikeouts and two walks.

And in his second appearance against Oakland in eight days, against hitters who had already faced him once last Sunday in Oakland, Ohtani made them look foolish in taking a perfect game into the seventh inning before Marcus Semien’s one-out single broke it up. He finished with 12 strikeouts, all swinging, in seven innings.

His four-seam fastball was consistently in the high 90s, up to 99 mph, and seemed to gain steam as the afternoon went on. His splitter was in the upper 80s, and both were punchout pitches; five of his first six strikeouts were on splitters, and his next three were clocked at 99, 98 and 99.

“He was throwing the fastball any time he wanted it, and that’s why the hitters feel pressure to swing at his splitter,” catcher Martin Maldonado said.

He also threw some sliders in the low 80s, less effectively but good enough to keep the A’s honest. And, just to toy with their minds, he’d mix in a slow curve or two. He started Matt Joyce with a 68 mph offering in the fourth and got a called strike one, a pitch that deserved an “ooooooooh” from the crowd.

Asked to recall someone he caught with the same amount of poise and ability to keep hitters off balance, Maldonado came up with a familiar name, albeit one you might not necessarily have expected.

“I would say Zack Greinke when I caught him in Milwaukee,” he said. “The way he could hit spots back then … he didn’t have that much speed on his fastball, but he was a really smart guy and can do any pitch on any count, like Shohei.”

And to think some of us saw the spring training performances, noted that Ohtani was carefully shielded from big league competition toward the end of the spring, and wondered if he might be better served starting the season in Triple-A.

(That probably illustrates why ballclubs generally don’t trust the opinions of those of us in the media when it comes to personnel decisions.)

“My favorite thing about him is that when the media was crushing him in spring training, he stayed the course, just like he is right now,” Angels infielder Zack Cozart said. “You couldn’t tell the difference.

“That’s what’s so cool about him. He’s so even keel, no matter what’s happening on the field, which for me makes him that much better.”

Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, acknowledged that coming out of that so-so spring training, “I wasn’t really imagining (myself) to be this good, to be honest, but I feel I’m getting better every day. I’m getting used to everything, more and more each day.”

Then he said something that suggests we haven’t seen close to the best of Shohei Ohtani.

“This is just the first week and everything went well,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a wall somewhere down the road. Once I hit that wall, that’s where I need to start working harder and figure out what I need to do to get past that wall.”

In the meantime, he’ll be trying to go over the wall again. Remember, Ohtani DHs again in a couple of days.

And it may be a while, depending on how the Angels manage their rotation, but there will come an interleague game in a National League park where he can hit and pitch the same game.

I’d hit him fifth. But I doubt Mike Scioscia will ask.

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

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