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Shohei Ohtani turned in a strong two-way performance on Thursday night to help the Angels clinch a series win against the AL West-leading Rangers at Globe Life Field. The Japanese phenom took the mound for the third time in June and tossed six innings, allowing two runs on six hits and one walk while fanning three in the Halos’ 5-3 win.

It was easily the best start of the month for Ohtani, who had a combined 5.73 ERA in his prior June outings. Ohtani now has a 3.29 ERA on the season in 14 starts and 82 innings pitched and has struck out 31.7% of hitters while walking 10.6% and holding hitters to a .178 average.

At the plate, the hottest hitter on the planet continued his torrid streak, hitting his fourth homer of this series in the eighth inning to extend the lead for the Halos. The 443-foot blast was Ohtani’s 22nd of the season, which ties him for the lead with Pete Alonso for most homers in the big leagues, and the third 440-foot+ opposite-field homer of the series.

It was not the prettiest of outings on the mound for Ohtani, who at times struggled with command and gave up a lot of solid contact against one of the league’s best offenses, but he got the job done and limited the Rangers to minimal damage. 

He got into an early jam after issuing another leadoff walk to open the game and giving up a bloop single to Adolis Garcia on a jammed shot after a 10-pitch at-bat. Ohtani was able to escape the inning after getting the next hitter, Jonah Heim, to pop out, but he finished the inning with 30 pitches thrown. 

After getting through the second inning without trouble, Ohtani gave up three consecutive hits in the third and allowed two runs to score, including an RBI double to Garcia and an RBI single to Heim. 

Ohtani was able to get through the rest of the start with no trouble, finishing the sixth inning on 99 pitches, an impressive feat considering the 30 pitches thrown in the first. 

It was a four-seam-heavy approach for Ohtani, who threw the pitch 47% of the time. It was intriguing to see that he did not throw the splitter at all, as he struggled to put hitters away on two-strike counts. Angels beat reporter Jeff Fletcher reported that Ohtani’s splitter has been getting misregistered as a two-seamer at times, but that does not seem to be the case for Thursday night’s outing, where he only stuck to his four-seamer, cutter, sweeper, and curveball. The lack of splitter usage could have been a pre-determined gameplan decision, or Ohtani deciding to pivot to a more efficient, pitch-to-contact style after the 30-pitch first inning.

“Obviously, this is a huge series win against a first-place team,” Ohtani said. “All the boys are fired up because we came out on top. So we hope the momentum will continue into the next series.”

The surging Angels are now just one game behind in the Wild Card race with a 39-32 record, winning nine of their last 11. Despite the series win against a division rival, the Angels’ depth will be tested in the coming weeks with a dire injury situation in the infield. The somewhat good news is that they will be facing below .500 teams in 10 of their next 12 games. 

Ohtani’s next scheduled start is against the Rockies at Coors Field on June 23 at 8:40 PM EST/ 5:40 PM PT.

For the second time this season and the seventh time in his career, Shohei Ohtani homered in the same game that he pitched in en route to a 5-4 Angels win Friday night.

It was a forgettable start for the 2021 AL MVP, who struggled mightily with his control. He issued three hits, five walks, and hit a batter, while striking out six in his five innings of work. Ohtani now has a 3.23 ERA in 13 starts this year. For reference, in his MVP campaign, Ohtani finished with a 3.18 ERA in 23 starts.

Friday night’s struggles came as somewhat of a surprise, as the two-way star pitched on an extra day of rest for the first time this season. He opened the game with a walk, marking the sixth time out of 13 starts he’s done so.

Although he retired the following two hitters, he was consistently working behind in the count. In the second pitch of the at-bat against Jarred Kelenic, Ohtani hung a sweeper and surrendered a two-run homer. It was the seventh homer off of a sweeper, which is one more than all of last season.

Despite the homer to Kelenic, Ohtani was able to erase his early mistake in the way that only he can, with his bat. Ohtani hit a two-run 440 foot blast to deep right field in the third inning, quickly wiping out the 2-0 deficit.

Ohtani got through the second through the fourth inning unscathed, before running into some trouble in the fifth inning. After walking the leadoff hitter and hitting another batter, he gave up an RBI-single to Ty France. He escaped the jam with minimal damage after getting Kelenic to ground out in a double play.

“I didn’t feel really good overall today,” said Ohtani. “Even more than my command, it’s the way I’m moving my body. I feel like I’m being less efficient moving my body.”

Ohtani at the plate was a different story. He finished the day with three hits and was one hit shy of the cycle when pitching for the third time this season. It was also his fourth three-hit game while serving as the starting pitcher.

“I’m feeling really good at the plate right now and more than that, I’m just happy the team won,” said a relieved Ohtani.

Ohtani’s next projected start is on June 15 against the AL West-leading Rangers at Globe Life Field. It should be a fun pitching matchup for Ohtani, who will be facing May’s AL Pitcher of the Month Nathan Eovaldi.

Shohei Ohtani made his first start in June on Saturday night against the Astros in Minute Maid Park. The Japanese superstar gave up nine hits, which ties a season-high and MLB career-high in hits allowed, and gave up five runs in six innings. Ohtani was once again outdueled by Astros’ ace Framber Valdez, who tossed seven scoreless frames. 

Despite solid outings against the Twins and the Marlins in the last two games, this game places Ohtani at a 5.02 ERA in his last seven starts. Ohtani’s ERA for the season is now at 3.42, but he’s maintaining a career-high strikeout rate of 33.8% and holding hitters to a .185 batting average. 

Although he recorded six strikeouts, Ohtani struggled to put hitters away. Five of the nine hits came from a two-strike count. 

“I feel like if I would’ve gotten more strikeouts, the momentum would’ve gone our way. But that wasn’t the case,” said Ohtani. 

Shaky defense in the first inning did not help Ohtani, with third baseman Gio Urshela fumbling a ground ball and throwing it into the dugout to get Jeremy Peña on second base. Ohtani got two strikes on Astros’ star slugger Yordan Alvarez, but hung a sweeper in the heart of the plate, which Alvarez took deep to make it a quick 2-0 game. 

Halos skipper Phil Nevin questioned Ohtani’s pitch selection after the game. 

“When he [Alvarez] sees a pitch like that in the zone, he usually doesn’t miss them the second time,” Nevin said. “It was just in a bad spot. There are some pitch selection things we’ll need to talk about. His stuff was there.”

Ohtani had pivoted from the sweeper and relied more on his other pitches including the splitter and cutter in recent starts, but the sweeper usage was back up to 36% against the Astros.

Ohtani came back in the second inning and struck out the side, and proceeded to retire the next 10 hitters. He got into trouble in the fourth, giving up three consecutive hits to load the bases. Ohtani escaped the inning on a weak groundball off of a checked swing. 

The fifth inning provided more trouble, and this time Ohtani was unable to escape. After a two-out walk, Ohtani gave up back-to-back singles and allowed the third run to score. He gave up two more runs in the sixth inning off of a Corey Julks two-run blast. 

Astros skipper Dusty Baker thought that Ohtani wasn’t at his best Saturday night. 

“This guy is one of the best around,” said Baker. “But he wasn’t as sharp tonight as we’ve seen him in the past.”

Ohtani will look to bounce back from this tough start against the Mariners at home on Friday, June 9 at 9:38 PM EST/ 6:38 PM PT.  

Angels ace Shohei Ohtani took the mound against the Marlins in Anaheim Saturday night for his 11th start of the season. The Japanese right-hander tossed six solid innings, allowing six singles and just one earned run while striking out 10 hitters. Ohtani’s season ERA is now at 2.91 and he leads the American League with 90 strikeouts in 65 total innings. 

It was not the best start for Ohtani on Saturday, as he made a throwing error to first after making a play on a ground ball to his right. This mistake came back to haunt Ohtani, as Yuli Gurriel drove in the runner with a two-out single.

Ohtani then settled into the game, retiring eight of the next nine hitters faced, fanning four of them. He ran into trouble in the fifth, allowing consecutive singles to open the inning. It seemed like he was going escape the jam after getting Jonathan Davis to ground out into a double play to shortstop, however, he walked the next hitter and gave up a two-out RBI single to Luis Arraez. 

“It wasn’t good, wasn’t bad. At least I got through six innings so that was good, but I could’ve done better in the situations that I allowed those runs,” Ohtani said.

Ohtani wrapped up his outing by striking out the final four hitters faced and finished with 109 pitches, his second-highest total on the season. Control issues affected Ohtani, who issued three walks, preventing him from being as efficient as he wanted to be. 

“Walking three hitters feels pretty wasteful,” Ohtani said. 

Ohtani’s sweeper usage was back up to 39% in this start, compared to the last few starts where he did not throw it more than 30%. He got 12 whiffs from the sweeper, which was back to looking like his best pitch. Seven of his strikeouts came from the sweeper. The splitter was ineffective on Saturday, with both RBI singles coming off of a splitter. Ohtani was unable to get any whiffs from the splitter in eight swings.  

“The movement [of the splitter] itself isn’t bad, I think the location is the problem,” Ohtani said. 

The average horizontal movement of Ohtani’s splitter was up to 10 inches compared to the season average of seven inches, according to Baseball Savant.

Ohtani’s six innings were not enough for the Angels, however, who lost 8-5 in extra innings. Despite the recent rough patch after his blistering hot start to the season, Ohtani has been a stabilizing presence in an otherwise inconsistent Angels rotation.

Ohtani will face the Astros for an AL West showdown on June 2 at 8:10 PM EST/5:10 PM PT for his next start.

Shohei Ohtani made his 10th start of the season Sunday afternoon against the Twins. It was a bounce-back performance for the Halos ace, who ended his streak of home runs allowed and held the Twins to just two hits and one run in six innings while fanning nine. The Japanese hurler’s season ERA is down to 3.03 and is striking out hitters at a 34.6% rate. He is also leading the majors with a .142 opponent batting average. 

Although he held the Twins to two hits, Ohtani regretted walking three batters and hitting one. He was able to pitch around it, however, and gave the Angels the length that they needed from him. The sole run came from a Carlos Correa double in the 3rd inning. 

Ohtani has consistently provided the Angels staff with length. Sunday was the fifth time out of the last six starts that Ohtani lasted at least six innings. It was an encouraging performance for the 2021 AL MVP, who has been going through a rut on the mound. 

Ohtani closed out his strong performance by striking out the side in the sixth inning. He did not get the decision, but the Angels got the win off of a Mickey Moniak go-ahead two-run double in the seventh.

The trend of decreased sweeper usage for Ohtani continued on Sunday, with usage down to  27% from his season average of over 40%. He did not throw the sweeper until the 10th pitch of the game. The adjustment comes from hitters going deep five times on the sweeper. He pivoted and instead relied heavily on his cutter and splitter. 

“I kept the pitch percentages in mind,” Ohtani said. “I threw a few hittable pitches, but since they weren’t sitting on it [like the sweeper] I was able to get away with it.”

The improved approach paid dividends, as Ohtani matched his season-high of 22 whiffs that he recorded on April 21 against the Royals. 

“I was trying to control the home runs and not make them feel comfortable at the plate. I was trying to make sure they were not taking good swings,” Ohtani said.

Former Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka said that even if Ohtani wasn’t throwing the sweeper, the thought of his sweeper was enough to keep hitters on their toes. He noted the pitch sequencing in Ohtani’s sixth-inning matchup with Carlos Correa. 

“After getting to two strikes against Correa, his fourth pitch was a splitter on the outside to try to get him out, but this was a ball. Correa was probably expecting a sweeper next, but Ohtani elected to throw the fastball so he was late and struck out,” Matsuzaka said. “Every pitch can be an outpitch for him. I think that he reestablished himself as a pitcher who’s hard to break down.” 

Ohtani’s next projected start is at home on May 28 against the Miami Marlins and their #1 pitching prospect Eury Perez at 4:07 PM EST/1:07 PM PT.