Ohtani Serves Up a Dud in the Bronx, But Angels Recover to Win a Wet and Wild One

NEW YORK — After living up to the hype and the history for the better part of the season’s first three months — capped by an extension of his recent home run spree with three in his first two games in the Bronx — Shohei Ohtani made a rare misstep on Wednesday. On a night where he doubled as both the Angels’ leadoff hitter and their starting pitcher, Ohtani allowed the first five Yankees he faced to reach base, failed to escape the first inning, and was charged with a career-high seven runs. Rather than send him out to right field after his start as planned, manager Joe Maddon had little choice but to pull his two-way superstar from the game entirely.

Not that many in the Yankee Stadium crowd of 30,714 complained. Quite the contrary. For as happy as they might have been to get a glimpse of the eighth wonder of the world, the sight of the Yankees’ recently-dormant offense continuing the previous night’s 11-run onslaught — one more run than they’d scored during their four-game losing streak — was even more welcome… at least until the plot twisted.

“Frustrating. Disappointing. Terrible,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone afterwards. Boone wasn’t referring to Ohtani’s outing, but rather the similar lapse of control from closer Aroldis Chapman. On a sweltering night that saw a temperature of 92 degrees at first pitch before a pair of rain delays cooled things off while adding a couple of extra hours at the ballpark, the Yankees frittered away their 7-2 first-inning lead, with Chapman ultimately walking the bases loaded in the ninth inning and serving up a game-tying grand slam to Jared Walsh. The Angels added three more runs against Lucas Luetge and escaped with a surreal 11-8 victory that Maddon called, “probably the craziest, best result we’ve had” during his two-season tenure.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote about Ohtani living up to the hype and playing himself into MVP consideration. Since then, the double-duty superstar had reeled off a stretch of 11 homers (and 14 extra-base hits) in 13 games, that while working in a pair of six-inning, one-run starts for good measure. He entered the game hitting .278/.361/.688 while holding the major-league lead in homers (28) and barrel rate (25.6%) and the AL lead in slugging percentage, not to mention a 2.58 ERA, 3.53 FIP, and a combined 4.7 WAR, tied with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the majors’ lead.

Around the time that Ohtani hit his second home run off Jameson Taillon on Tuesday night, I decided I had to see him firsthand, my resolve bolstered by Maddon’s postgame announcement that he would not only start on Wednesday but hit for himself. I couldn’t pass this up; the circus doesn’t come to town every day. 

As he has seemed to do just about every week this season, Ohtani was poised to carve out another historical niche or two. For one, he was about to become the fifth player in major league history and the first since Babe Ruth in 1930 to hit two dingers on one day and then start the next: 

Info on those instances!

Babe Ruth:
2 HR 9/27/30 at A's
SP 9/28/30 at Red Sox

Monte Ward:
2 HR 5/3/83 vs Beaneaters
SP 5/4/83 vs Grays

Bob Caruthers:
2 HR 8/16/86 vs Trolley-Dodgers
SP 8/19/86 vs Alleghenys

John Clarkson:
2 HR 8/13/87 vs Wolverines
SP 8/15/87 vs Wolverines

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) June 30, 2021

Likewise, with Maddon’s decision to bat him leadoff, Ohtani was about to become the fourth player to hit first and start on the mound, and the first for whom it wasn’t a gimmick:

Starting Pitchers to leadoff:
–#Angels Shohei Ohtani (today at NYY)
-Giants INF Al Dark, 9/27/53 at PIT (1 IP before moving to 3B)
-Twins UTL Cesar Tovar, 9/22/68 vs. OAK (1 IP; played all 9 positions in the game)
-Giants OF Jim Jones, 9/30/1901 (5 IP; pitched two career games) https://t.co/cqDAcklamV

— Matt Birch (@MattBirch12) June 30, 2021

None of those other three players took the mound in a major league game again. For as bad as Ohtani’s night was, he’ll get another chance soon enough. 

But oy, this one. Ohtani the hitter led off the game by getting ahead 2-0 against Domingo Germán, then battling to a full count before hitting a towering but routine fly ball to center field in what turned out to be his only plate appearance. After Anthony Rendon walked, Phil Gosselin hit a two-out, two-run homer to stake his starter to a 2-0 lead. 

Facing a Yankees lineup that was without both Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela (both of whom were getting routine days of rest, according to Boone), Ohtani was wild, walking the first three batters he faced — DJ LeMahieu, Luke Voit, and Gary Sánchez — on a total of 19 pitches, just seven of which were strikes. Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres each followed with singles to left field, driving in a run apiece to tie the score. 

Finally, having thrown 27 pitches without recording a single out, Ohtani struck out Rougned Odor on three low pitches capped by a splitter in the dirt, then got Miguel Andújar to ground to third. That scored Sánchez, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Apparently aiming to rekindle the “batted around” debate, Ohtani hit Clint Frazier to reload the bases and bring up the number nine hitter, Brett Gardner. When he walked Gardner on four pitches — only one of which was even close to the zone — to force in a fourth run and run his pitch count to 41, Maddon had no choice but to bring out the hook and bring in righty reliever Aaron Slegers, whose second pitch was ripped down the right field line by LeMahieu to clear the bases, running the lead to 7-2 before retiring Voit on a fly ball.

Even with a depleted outfield that’s down Dexter Fowler, Mike Trout and now Justin Upton due to injuries, Maddon bypassed the opportunity to keep Ohtani in the game as the right fielder, something he’s done on three occasions this year, all after starts of at least 4.2 innings. “Once he hit 40 pitches, it was too much,” said the manager afterwards. “I explained that if I took him out, it would also permit us to use him as the DH tomorrow. I considered putting him in the outfield, so he could get one more at-bat, but it was hot again and he was sweating profusely.”

Ohtani’s worst start of the year — featuring a career-high seven runs allowed — bore more resemblance to the two nasty, brutish, and short outings he made last year before being sidelined by a flexor pronator strain than it did to his earlier starts this year, all of which lasted at least four innings. The silver lining to this one was that he was healthy and his velocity didn’t suddenly collapse. His four-seam fastball averaged 95.7 mph, 0.3 mph above his season average, and went as high as 99.7 mph.

As noted previously, Ohtani began his season struggling with his control, perhaps understandable given that he’d thrown just four ugly innings in regular season play over a 34-month span due to a UCL sprain that ultimately resulted in 2018 Tommy John surgery and then last year’s strain. He walked 19 batters (22.6%) in his first 18.2 innings, though he still managed a 2.41 ERA and 4.00 FIP because he struck out 30 (35.7%) and allowed just one home run. He’d gotten things under control, however, entering Wednesday having walked just 12 hitters (7.3%) in his subsequent seven starts totaling 40.2 innings, that while striking out 52 (31.7%) en route to a 2.66 ERA and 3.29 FIP. 

That control was nowhere in evidence on Wednesday, when he threw just 20 of his 41 pitches for strikes, including just nine of 23 four-seamers and five of 11 sliders. He netted just four swings and misses, two from among his five splitters. It wasn’t a case of nerves on the big stage, said Ohtani afterwards, it was his mechanics. “I didn’t really feel the pressure of Yankee Stadium,” he said through his interpreter. “I had hit there the last two days, so I was used to that. Pitching-wise, my body felt great and had good arm action, but I was letting the ball get away and yanking pitches.”

Via Statcast, Ohtani’s average vertical and horizontal release points from the night (5.90 feet and -1.87 feet, respectively) were significantly off relative to his seasonal averages (6.07 feet and -1.95 feet, respectively), the former by about two inches, the latter by about one inch. On a hot and humid night where the two teams’ pitchers combined to walk an ungodly 16 batters and plunk another two, it’s fair to wonder if anyone had trouble gripping the ball in the midst of MLB’s crackdown on foreign substances, but for whatever it’s worth, Ohtani’s average fastball spin rate of 2,332 rpm barely deviated from his seasonal average of 2,314.

The Yankees, to their credit, did bring a disciplined approach to the plate against Ohtani, swinging and missing at just two pitches in the Statcast chase zone (both by Odor) but none of the 15 in the shadow zone; they took seven of the latter for balls (plus Frazier’s hit-by-pitch), fouled off six, and hit one for a single (Stanton).

Once Ohtani departed, the game appeared to be a rout in the making, but Germán struggled after sitting so long during the Yankees’ rally, allowing a leadoff single to José Iglesias, a one-out double to Taylor Ward, and then an RBI double to Juan Lagares. Maddon, who had intended to let Slegers hit for himself for the first time in his professional career, instead called him back in favor of Scott Schebler, one of his three position players on the bench. Germán struck him out and then retired Rendon on a lineout to end the threat.

The Yankees looked as though they would extend their lead against reliever Alex Claudio, loading the bases in the second inning and putting the first two men on in the third, but each time, the Angels escaped; Andújar hit into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play in the second, and then Dylan Bundy — who had exited Monday’s start after 43 pitches and a bout of heat exhaustion that caused him to vomit on the mound — extricated them in the third. Between Bundy’s first and second batters faced, the skies opened up, causing a 42-minute rain delay that seemed to sap the Yankees’ momentum. Before the rain, 13 of their first 18 batters reached base, but afterwards, just six of 24 did so.

Bundy, Tony Watson, and Steve Cishek combined to give the Angels five scoreless innings, during which the Angels closed the gap to 7-4 via a fifth-inning solo homer by Walsh off of Luis Cessa. After the top of the fifth, the rain returned, this time for an hour and 31 minutes. Play resumed around 11:30 pm, and it was well after midnight when Gardner’s eighth-inning solo homer off Mike Mayers extended the Yankees’ lead to 8-4.

With Chapman having not pitched since June 23 due to the Yankees’ four-game losing streak and Monday’s blowout victory, Boone called upon him to close out the game, but he struggled with his command. After issuing a five-pitch walk to Ward, he retired Lagares on a grounder, then was nowhere near the strike zone in falling behind Max Stassi 3-0 before recovering to run the count full; his 97.2 mph fastball missed inside to Stassi for another walk. After getting ahead of Rendon with a borderline strike at the top of the zone, he failed to get him to offer at two more sliders, one low, the other high. Rendon fouled off a fastball on the inside corner to even the count, but didn’t chase a fastball in the dirt, and took a slider on the inside border for ball four. Walsh looked at a high slider, and then punished another one that Chapman left in the zone, hitting it 401 feet to center field for a grand slam, his 20th homer of the year.

That chased Chapman, who after allowing just two runs in 20 innings in April and May has yielded 12 in 8.2 innings in June, that while the spin rate on his fastball has fallen. On Wednesday, it averaged 2,335 rpm, 102 below his seasonal average — nearly a full standard deviation (115 rpm) by Eno Sarris’ calculations — and its average velocity of 98.7 mph was 1.3 below his seasonal mark. Of the 13 heaters he threw, the Angels swung just three times, fouling two off and hitting one for a groundout (Lagares).

“The main problem is the control of my fastball,” said Chapman through an interpreter afterwards. “Everything balances out from the fastball… When you’re trying to locate and use that pitch and it’s not the way you want it, you run into trouble, and I think that’s the main cause.”

The Angels kept the line moving against Luetge, with Luis Rengifo, the team’s last available position player, hitting a two-run pinch-single and Ward following with an RBI single to run the lead to 11-8. The shocked and stunned Yankees went down 1-2-3 on just nine pitches against Angels closer Raisel Iglesias. Afterwards, Stanton, who had led off the frame by hitting a weak grounder on the second pitch he saw, echoed Boone in calling the loss that dropped the Yankees to a disappointing 41-39 “about as bad as it gets… We’re all just as frustrated. We gotta pick this shit up.”

Ohtani, for his part, was elated at the comeback, calling his teammates’ postgame high fives “the loudest and most exciting of the year, by far.” After a season of helping to pick up his teammates as the club tries to claw its way back to .500 (they’re now 39-41), it was their turn. “I didn’t have the results I wanted but the team picked me up. All the pitchers and all the hitters.”