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Play a game. Hit a home run.
Play the next game. Hit a home run again.
Play the next game. Hit even another home run.
(Oh, go ahead and get a few base hits in there, too.)
Play in your next game. Pitch 6 perfect innings. Strike out 12. Walk only 1. Give up only 1 hit.
Let’s take a pause for a minute, even from that. Shohei Ohtani has appeared in 6 MLB regular season games so far. He is batting .389 / .421 / .889 with an OPS of 1.310. 7 total hits and 3 of those are home runs. He has also pitched 13 innings. 18 of his 39 outs have come from strikeouts. Only Cole Hamels (3 starts), Gerrit Cole and Pat Corbin have more. He has given up only 4 hits (Those other guys? 17, 7 and 8 respectively). He has now gone 11 consecutive innings without giving up a run of any sort.
Shohei Ohtani has had the best start to this season of any MLB player. And, insanely, it ain’t even particularly close. Any sports news resource in America (or Japan, for that matter) which doesn’t lead the day with the baseball fun that is Shohei Ohtani is being a purposefully shithead whiner. Kind of like A’s fans in their game thread yesterday.
Yesterday was jaw-dropping. I cannot wait to see how Ohtani matches up on the mound against a Major League team. Nor can I wait to see how ESPN now tops the feature story Ohtani forced them to write BEFORE Sunday...........And StatCast is having a tough time keeping pace..........
Enjoy these MVP-and-CYA-and-RoY-and-Silver-Slugger-Of-April-9th-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
J.C. Ramirez has contracted elbow strain. Forearm tightness. 10-day DL. With Andrew Heaney and Matt Shoemaker already there, that makes 3 of the 5-man rotation and we are only 10 games into the season. Dagnabit..............
This kind of calamity forces Billy Eppler to start pulling all the levers on roster moves..............Maybe the most surprising was pulling Ryan Shimpf out of the Braves organization on the 31st, then call him up from Salt Lake on the 7th, and on the 8th he goes 2 for 2 with a home run, 2 walks, 2 runs scored, 4 total bases...........
Matt Shoemaker must be feeling the absolute worst. That 10-day is only just the beginning and nobody is even at a point where they can forecast how long he will be out off action............
Ian Kinsler returns ?tomorrow?...........
Let’s not forget that we are deep in the mud Mike Trout fans. Trout is off to a slow start, but yesterday was vintage. He scores from first on a Pujols double after walking his way aboard......He showed that he still has wheels......Next up was a solo blast over the center field bushes......And then next inning a clutch RBI single to put the period on the contest.............
The difference between March Ohtani and April Ohtani is an adjustment at the plate to simplify things...........
Everywhere In Baseball
There is more to the history of two-way MLB players than just Babe Ruth and Shohei Ohtani...........
I see that Padres 1B Eric Hosmer suffered from an infield pop-fly choosing to collude with owners and showcase the free agent’s $144 million defensive skills in real time...........
Trevor Bauer is one opinionated dude, and he is free with them opinions of his. And he went jawing over the weekend again. But this whine might have a point. MLB has scheduled games in the freezing early Spring of Cleveland. And they are hustling up pitchers between innings fro some reason that some find important. This is not a good combo for pitchers trying to get their arms heated back up for the next inning. But about that cheating, thing. Is somebody talking out of school?..........
Hold on a sec. Kevin Pillar and Kevin Kiermaier no longer have had as much range as we thought? Now they are merely normal? I hate UZR............
There are some things that, if you choose to do them, are pretty much a guarantee of ejection from a Major League Baseball game. Even when you are in the right. Bat flips in the face of your opponent will piss off your opponent. Bat flips in the ace off the plate umpire will do the same thing, for the same reason. So don’t act so surprised, Anthony Rendon..........
Plate umpires have been having a tough run all over MLB (our game yesterday between the Halos and A’s was no exception). It doesn’t help matters when an ump that is having a bad game is ALSO getting hosed by catcher framing. So watch this clip. My guess is that the moment that all excitement begins is when a very frustrated Torey Lovullo, while arguing with umpire Tim Timmons, made some kind of comment along the lines of: “you’re letting this f#@ker totally screw with you with his bullsh!t glove tricks!”.
What? Major League Baseball behaving like an 800 pound bully? Who would have guessed THAT?..........
Bryce Harper is now an old man. (By the way, don’t forget with all the Bryce-is-just-a-kid talk that Mike Trout is only 14 months older.).......
Hey, for just a moment stop worrying about our injury problems. Or those of Seattle (snicker snicker). The Yankees want some of our sympathy............
The Duffle Bag
It’s still early, but that doesn’t mean that the early LAD failures are not fun...........A very, very bad look. And not just for the City of Cleveland..........Sounds like I need to get my oldest son to square off against Jose Ramirez...........Rougned Odor may not have much ballgame, but he still is an MVP level pissant...........MFY fans are the best in baseball, right? All 14 of them...........Imagine if this happened out of the very top of our farm system? Ouch...........Hockeyball. A new sport is born..........My guess is that Giants players and ans are living life under the pretense that the 2002 World Series ended at Game 5.........C.J. Cron punishing the BoSux.............Sandlot lives!.............Rhys Hoskins owes the bat boy one steak dinner.............If nothing else, at least Tim Lincecum still has tenacity...........These two seem destined for a life off romance...........