Shohei Ohtani Injury: Angels GM Drops a Bombshell on Friday
On the first game day since the news of Shohei Ohtani's torn elbow ligament was revealed, more details are surfacing on everything leading up to the injury. Angels general manager Perry Minasian dropped a bit of a bombshell update to reporters where he said that, shockingly, Wednesday was the first time all season that Ohtani had undergone any sort of imaging on that troublesome right elbow.
And that comes through months of complaints of arm fatigue. Newsday writer Laura Albanese shared on Twitter.
Considering the stature of Shohei Ohtani and his importance to the team, it's certainly strange that a bit more care didn't go into his complaints over the course of the season.
To the Halos' credit, Minasian said Ohtani never gave the club any indication of pain before Wednesday afternoon. The only issues he battled through involved blister and fingernail issues on his pitching hand, along with cramping and that previously mentioned fatigue.
“Talking to Shohei, talking to (interpreter Ippei Mizuhara), talking to the trainers, there was no pain,” Angels manager Phil Nevin echoed. “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.”
At this point, hindsight and finger pointing doesn't do anything to help the situation. It's just a bad break for Shohei, the Angels, and all of baseball. And it may just be the price Ohtani had to pay to do what he wants to do... be the only elite two-way player in the sport.
