AngelsWin.com Today: Shohei Ohtani criticized for lack of hustle, not running out fly ball

[AngelsWin.com]

Angels slugger Shohei Ohtani is arguably the best player on his team not named Mike Trout, so he can sometimes reap the benefit of that by taking it a bit easy at times.

And that’s exactly what he did during Tuesday’s game against the Indians, when he fouled out to left in the sixth inning of the game. The thing is that the ball fell just a few feet from the line, and had it been fair, Ohtani would’ve had an easy double.

However, he didn’t run — heck, he didn’t even leave the box — and a few Twitter users took notice of it.

Shohei Ohtani made the final out of the 6th inning. His fly ball was caught this far foul (maybe 6 feet) and he didn't even run. pic.twitter.com/5t0DVlBTW4

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) September 11, 2019

Sure, Ohtani has a great eye for the ball, and he likely knew it’d be foul, but it’s still not a great look to not run it out anyway. Hustle is important, and trickles down to the young players on the team.

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[Taylor]

Not a good look for Shohei, but he's never done anything like this before, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Angelsfan1984]

How do we know that had he run out that foul ball he wouldn't have torn his UCL...im fine with it.

[Blarg]

Not going to knock a guy that hustles out infield hits with his speed. His take from the batters box was probably the ball is in the seats and if not the result was the same had the left fielder dropped the ball, dead ball and Ohtani gets another pitch. 

People bitching about this play are Claude level trolling.

[Tank]

yeah, this is a non-story.

[Lou]

He should have run it out. 

[failos]

I'd be upset if he did what Puig did yesterday.

[Claude]

Emperor Hirohito would’ve had him castrated for such a cowardly act. 

[m0nkey]

I don’t mind when players don’t hustle out of the box when 997/1000 times they’re going to be out anyway. Why risk injury 

[Claude]

46 minutes ago, m0nkey said:

I don’t mind when players don’t hustle out of the box when 997/1000 times they’re going to be out anyway. Why risk injury 

Because they could stretch it into double on an overthrow. 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Calzone 2

[Jay]

59 minutes ago, m0nkey said:

I don’t mind when players don’t hustle out of the box when 997/1000 times they’re going to be out anyway. Why risk injury 

.003

Pretty piss poor BA

Yeah that guy shouldn't hustle out of the box. He shouldn't even be in the box to begin with.

 

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, Calzone 2 said:

Because they could stretch it into double on an overthrow. 

Not on a foul ball. Three outcomes, ball goes in seats, ball is caught, ball is dropped. In no scenario does the batter advance to first. 

[Angel Oracle]

It's not like the ball was right on the foul line.    There's enough to critique about the team, as it is.

[Lou]

the only reason Ohtani could have known that was going to be a foul ball is if he were standing in the batter's box watching it. If he had been running out of the box as soon as he hit it he would have made it at least half way down the line before it went foul. Stop making excuses for him. If it was a player like Rengifo or Upton, you guys would be giving him a load of crap.

[Claude]

40 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Not on a foul ball. Three outcomes, ball goes in seats, ball is caught, ball is dropped. In no scenario does the batter advance to first. 

Pete Rose wouldn’t have stood in the box.

[Angel Oracle]

18 minutes ago, Lou said:

the only reason Ohtani could have known that was going to be a foul ball is if he were standing in the batter's box watching it. If he had been running out of the box as soon as he hit it he would have made it at least half way down the line before it went foul. Stop making excuses for him. If it was a player like Rengifo or Upton, you guys would be giving him a load of crap.

At this point, the only thing that matters is getting through the season without anymore big injuries.   If Ohtanisan does it again, then worry about it.

[yk9001]

Twitter noticed!!

[Lou]

14 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

At this point, the only thing that matters is getting through the season without anymore big injuries.   If Ohtanisan does it again, then worry about it.

Wrong.

It matters because he's no different than any other player and expectations are equal when it comes to effort, whether it's Opening Day or a "meaningless" game in September.

[halomatt]

50 minutes ago, Lou said:

Wrong.

It matters because he's no different than any other player and expectations are equal when it comes to effort, whether it's Opening Day or a "meaningless" game in September.

My initial thought was, "non-story", but you make a great point about the team's common expectations.  If that is the expectation, which is presumably set in place by the management, then yes, he screwed up.  I guess the question I have is whether or not the manager took time to reinforce the expectation so that it does not happen again. 

[m0nkey]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

.003

Pretty piss poor BA

Yeah that guy shouldn't hustle out of the box. He shouldn't even be in the box to begin with.

 

Blame Ausmus

[angelsnationtalk]

Considering he sprints every ground ball out, it really doesn’t matter. If the ball ended up fair he still would have ended up at second base while Pujols would have been thrown out at first 

[axalar]

There was a game about 1.5-2 weeks ago where Ohtani hit a weak grounder about half way to third and got thrown out only because he didnt run full speed (ball was bobbled iirc). Gubi/Victor even called it out that they didnt know what he was doing. 

I think this does speak to a larger attitude he has right now.

[Blarg]

3 hours ago, Calzone 2 said:

Pete Rose wouldn’t have stood in the box.

Just your kind of example. He's banned from baseball.

[failos]

in before the "Shohei is unhappy" posts

[BackUpTheTruck]

Robles, Rodriguez, and Middleton are the only pitchers on our team with an ERA under 4.

I criticize the lack of hustle from the pitching staff.