Angels News: Phil Nevin Doesn't Feel Shohei Ohtani Injury Could Have Been Avoided
After the news dropped that Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani suffered another torn UCL, many were quick to blame the Halos organization for the injury. He had been dealing with arm fatigue throughout the season, so people pointed to the team not giving him enough rest.
Especially when the face of a league gets hurt, it’s easy to start trying to find a cause. But injuries in sports are unavoidable. Unfortunately, things happen in the field of play, so the Angels can’t be blamed for this.
Manager Phil Nevin spoke on this, and he knows that while the injury stings, it couldn’t have been avoided.
“I think everyone in that room is wondering, hey, could we have done anything differently,” the Nevin said Friday. “You sit here and rack your brain about it and beat yourself up over it, and no, there’s not anything. These injuries happen. It stinks.”
Ohtani will continue to play as only a batter going forward. He won’t pitch the rest of the season, as he looks for a second option to deal with the injury.
The hope is that he won’t require another Tommy John Surgery, because that would put him behind in terms of his two-way future in the sport. This entire situation is just an awful situation.
“Talking to Shohei, talking to (interpreter Ippei Mizuhara), talking to the trainers, there was no pain,” Nevin said. “People want to speculate all they want. That’s not the case. That’s not true. He just felt what he called fatigue, a little tired. When he got through the week after missing the start, he felt great all week. He threw a great bullpen. And it just went amiss there in the second inning.”
Since he joined the big leagues back in 2018, Ohtani has changed the way that people look at the MLB. His abilities are unlike anything that we have ever seen, and he wants to continue producing at a high level on both sides for a long time.
This is a hiccup in that, and Ohtani himself knows that things happen. It had been well documented that Ohtani didn’t have any pain, just fatigue in his arm. The Angels have some big decisions to make, and this will be something to watch.
