What Shohei Ohtani can’t do on a baseball field? Probably nothing.
And yesterday afternoon (Thursday), he came very close to making baseball history once again. The Nippon came up to bat in the eighth inning with a chance to become the first player in history to hit a carousel while being the starting pitcher in that same game.
He then powered the first pitch he saw to center field, but Oakland A’s outfielder Esteury Ruiz picked the ripe fruit at the warning lane, 389 feet from the plate.
So close! A few feet further and that was it.
Ohtani had reached first base after hitting an infield single in the first inning, then followed it up with a double to opposite field in the third, followed by a hit ball to the right field fence that went turned into a triple in the sixth set.
The left-handed big hitter, who hit a carousel in June 2019, would have become the first player since Jimmy Ryan of the Chicago White Stockings in 1888 to hit a carousel in a game in which he also pitched. However, Ryan had started this game in the outfield.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, it was a tougher outing for Ohtani. Despite an 8-7 victory for his team against the Athletics, the Japanese gunner allowed five runs on only three hits. His control wasn’t quite on point.
In the fourth inning, Ohtani allowed the first six batters to hit the trails. He rebounded, however, to strike out eight of the next ten batters, completing six innings of work and earning his fourth win of the season.
