Shohei Ohtani Is the Only Thing Keeping the Angels Afloat
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Last night in Miami, Shohei Ohtani did what’s become routine midway through the 2022 season: He stopped another Angels losing streak.
He did so by putting on another historic two-way show: Ohtani allowed just one unearned run on two hits with 10 strikeouts in seven innings, and broke a 1–1 tie with a two-out, two-RBI single in the fifth inning of what would eventually become a 5–2 victory. The latest virtuoso performance made him the only player in league history to strike out 10 batters on the mound while driving in two runs at the plate and stealing a base.
As the 28-year-old continues to evolve as a pitcher, it was his slider that proved to be his most effective pitch against the Marlins. Opposing hitters swung at 22 sliders on the night and made contact only half the time. In all, Miami batters had a 45% whiff rate on 47 swings, with Ohtani topping out at 101 miles per hour on his fastball. Of the 14 balls put in play against him, only four had an expected batting average better than .150.
The game provided yet another entry in what’s been a doomed theme for the Angels: They pretty much only win when the reigning MVP does something incredible (and even then, sometimes that’s not enough). Los Angeles is 16–11 (.593) on the season when Ohtani either starts on the mound or hits a home run. The team is 22–34 (.393) in all other games. Like Mike Trout has endured for the better part of the past decade, the Angels are woefully deprived of a reliable supporting cast, instead going boom or bust with their star players.
Jim Rassol/USA TODAY Sports
Ohtani has been on a particularly torrid tear in his past five starts. He’s given up only one earned run across 33 ⅔ innings during that stretch, striking out 46 batters with just 25 baserunners allowed. Most crucially, each outing came after an Angels defeat. His June 9 start snapped a franchise-record 14-game losing streak. On that night, he pitched seven one-run innings with six strikeouts, and also hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the fifth inning with his team trailing, 1–0, at the time.
Ohtani’s June 16 outing (six innings, no runs, two hits) ended a three-game skid. On June 22—the same night the Angels honored the 20-year anniversary of the franchise’s lone World Series title—Ohtani struck out a career-high 13 hitters across eight two-hit frames and reached base three times. This came one night after he drove in eight runs—including a game-tying three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning—in what eventually became a 12–11 defeat in extra innings.
On Wednesday, the reigning American League MVP’s efforts ended a four-game losing streak amid a woeful offensive stretch for the Angels. During the skid, the team managed just five runs and only 11 total hits, striking out 59 times (including a record-tying 20 times in one game). While virtually every bat has gone cold of late, perhaps most concerning are Trout’s struggles at the plate: In five games this month, the center fielder is 1-for-18 with 13 strikeouts, putting even more pressure on Ohtani to deliver on a nightly basis.
Even on a night when Ohtani shined and the Angels needed every bit of it, it’s fitting to look at another score from Wednesday: The Yankees crushed the Pirates, 16–0, behind a grand slam from Aaron Judge. The hulking outfielder leads the majors with 30 homers for a team loaded with talent that’s on pace for 117 wins, and is the clear betting favorite to win his first MVP award this season.
That speaks to the type of season he and the Yankees are having, but also to how hapless the non-Ohtani Angels have been given the fact that his two-way antics remain in a league of their own. For the season, Ohtani is 8–4 with a 2.44 ERA and 111 strikeouts in 14 starts. He’s on pace for 35 home runs, 101 RBIs and 19 stolen bases, yet as we pass the halfway mark of the baseball calendar, he faces an uphill battle to repeat as MVP.
There are other players worthy of MVP consideration, of course. José Ramírez, Rafael Devers, Yordán Alvarez and Trout all remain in the discussion as we head toward the All-Star break. Trout, a three-time winner, has proved that voters will reward players on bad Angels teams, but perhaps the narrative that Ohtani is seemingly the only force keeping his club from a total freefall will feel tired by the time voting comes around.
Whether Ohtani’s efforts are rewarded with more hardware or not remains to be seen. What’s clear, though, is that as bad as the past six weeks have gone for the Angels, it could be a lot worse if No. 17 was playing for any other team.
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