Even Shohei Ohtani Had to Admire Filthy Breaking Pitch From Paul Skenes

Ohtani put his pitcher's cap on for a second and admired this nasty pitch from Skenes.

Even though it resulted in a called strike, Ohtani had to take a second to admire the movement on Skenes's sweeper. | Screengrab Twitter @PitchingNinja

Shohei Ohtani is baseball unicorn, as evidenced by his rare two-way skills.

Ohtani's skill as both a pitcher and hitter also makes him uniquely able to identify with the trials and tribulations of both pitching and hitting. Such an instance occurred during the Pirates' 5-3 win over the Dodgers, in which Ohtani found himself face-to-face with arguably the best pitcher in the game in Pirates ace Paul Skenes.

In three plate appearances against Skenes, Ohtani struck out twice and worked a walk. And during the third showdown between Skenes and Ohtani in the top of the sixth inning, there was a game-recognize-game moment when the Pirates righthander unleashed a filthy breaker on the Dodgers slugger.

On the first pitch, Skenes delivered a nasty sweeper that appeared headed for the outside corner of the plate before it boomeranged back into the zone for a called strike.

Ohtani, after taking the pitch, did a double take at its absurd movement.

Shohei admiring Paul Skenes' Sweeper movement. 👀 pic.twitter.com/uSX1ph7l0Y

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 5, 2025

After Thursday's contest, Ohtani is now 2-for-11 with a home run, a walk and six strikeouts against Skenes in his career. Skenes, meanwhile, tossed six scoreless innings and struck out eight batters to earn the win, lowering his ERA to 1.98 in the process.

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