April 8, 2018: Shohei Ohtani’s home pitching debut is almost perfect

The crowd in Anaheim for the Los Angeles Angels’ sixth home game of the 2018 season was bigger than that for Opening Day.1 The 44,742 fans filling The Big A on a Sunday afternoon were there to see Shohei Ohtani’s home pitching debut.

The 23-year-old Ohtani, a celebrated offseason signing from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, had made his major-league pitching debut the previous week against the same Oakland A’s, allowing three hits and three runs – all in the second inning – and earning the win with his six-inning performance. That performance had quieted the doubts after his mediocre preseason outings.2 After that appearance,3 he had served as the Angels’ designated hitter in three games, notching six hits and homering in each game. The comparisons to Babe Ruth were irresistible.4

The Angels (6-2) were hosting the A’s (4-6). This was the American League West foes’ seventh meeting in the first 10 games of the season, on their way to 19 scheduled games in 2018. So far, the Angels had won four of their six games.

Ohtani did not disappoint in the first inning. He struck out Matt Joyce, Marcus Semien, and Jed Lowrie on 15 pitches, getting the first two batters on full-count pitches.

The A’s Kendall Graveman (0-1, 8.10 ERA) was making his third start. As the Opening Day starter against the Angels, he’d allowed five runs in five innings but received a no-decision when the A’s rallied to win.

Graveman opened this game with a quick strikeout of Zack Cozart but walked Mike Trout. Justin Upton looked at strike three. With Albert Pujols – nearing the 3,000-hit milestone for his career – batting, Trout took long leads off first, drawing several pickoff throws. The lead put Trout in position to score his 700th career run5 when Pujols doubled over the third-base bag.

While Kole Calhoun walked to the plate the Angels staff changed the giant “Pujols-Hit-Meter” sign above the right-field stands to 2,979.6 Calhoun singled, scoring Pujols for a 2-0 Los Angeles lead.

Ohtani worked another clean inning in the second with some help from Trout, who made a running catch of Khris Davis’s line drive into center.

Graveman continued to struggle in the second. After Luis Valbuena popped out on the infield, Graveman plunked Martín Maldonado with the ninth pitch of the at-bat. Glares were exchanged, but nothing more serious occurred. As with Maldonado, Graveman got ahead of Ryan Schimpf with two strikes but walked him. He got out of the jam when Cozart grounded into a double play.

After Jonathan Lucroy fouled out, Ohtani collected two more strikeouts in the top of the third.

Trout opened the home half of the third by ending his 0-for-13 slump. His third home run of the season cleared the trees in center field behind the batter’s eye, increasing the Angels’ lead to 3-0.

Los Angeles threatened to add more when Pujols struck out with one out but dashed to first on a passed ball and Calhoun walked. Semien made a diving stop of Andrelton Simmons’s grounder between third and short, throwing to third for the force while still on the ground. Matt Chapman held onto the ball despite being upended by Pujols coming in hard. Graveman got out of the inning by inducing a groundout by Valbuena.

Ohtani worked another one-two-three inning in the fourth, with another strikeout. The fans stood to cheer him as he returned to the dugout.

In the Angels’ fourth, Schimpf walked and Cozart singled, putting two on for Trout. His bloop single scored Schimpf, moved Cozart to third, and chased Graveman after 3⅓ innings.7 Liam Hendriks took over the pitching and limited the damage to one more run on Upton’s sacrifice fly.

Ohtani struck out the side in the fifth on 13 pitches, earning another standing ovation as he returned to the dugout.

Danny Coulombe held the Angels scoreless in the bottom of the fifth, allowing only a single to Simmons.

Leading off the sixth, Lucroy worked a full count against Ohtani – his first full count since the first inning. Lucroy became the 16th straight Oakland batter retired when he flied out on the sixth pitch, triggering cheering at a similar level to Trout’s home run.

Stephen Piscotty grounded out on the next pitch so the cheering barely had a lull. The A’s TV announcers noted that the media in Japan were reporting Ohtani’s 5⅔ perfect innings. Interest in Ohtani in Japan was intense – the camera wells were packed with Japanese media even though their game broadcast started at 5 A.M. in Japan.8 When the count went to 0-and-2 against Jake Smolinski, the crowd rose to cheer – which they did when Smolinski went down swinging at the third pitch. Ohtani had set down 18 in a row.

Coulombe did not hold the Angels scoreless in the sixth – Schimpf hit what turned out to be his only homer of 2018 into the seats in right-center,9 bringing the score to 6-0, Angels. A’s manager Bob Melvin called on Yusmiero Petit to take over the pitching. He got three quick outs.

Joyce lined out to short to start the seventh, but Semien ended Ohtani’s perfect-game bid with a solid hit to left. The crowd gave Ohtani another standing ovation.

When game action resumed, Ohtani threw four straight balls to Lowrie, including two that were wild enough that Lowrie had to skip out of the way. That triggered a visit from pitching coach Charles Nagy, accompanied by Ohtani’s interpreter.

Whatever he said (or just the break) seemed to work – Davis grounded the next pitch back to Ohtani, who flipped it to first for the out. Matt Olson was Ohtani’s 12th and final strikeout victim. Ohtani pumped his fist as he hopped off the mound, returning to the dugout to yet another standing ovation.

Santiago Casilla pitched clean seventh and eighth innings for Oakland. Blake Wood, relieving Ohtani, allowed a walk in the top of the eighth but erased the runner on a double play.

The A’s finally got on the board in the top of the ninth. Joyce hit a one-out homer off Félix Peña, bringing the score to the final 6-1, Angels.

In his postgame interview, Ohtani admitted that he had not expected to pitch this well, especially considering his spring-training results.10 He had made his marks on the record books – he was the first player in 99 years to win two games and hit three homers in the season’s first 10 games. (No, not Ruth – the previous player was Jim Shaw of the 1919 Washington Senators.) He tied Ruth (1916) and Ken Brett (1973) by pitching a double-digit-strikeout game and hitting home runs in three consecutive games within the same season. He also tied the Angels record11 with 18 strikeouts in his first two games.12

By the time the 2018 season was over, Ohtani had erased any doubts about his ability to play in the major leagues. He was voted the American League Rookie of the Year, although mostly for his hitting13 rather than his pitching. His pitching was limited to 10 starts due to a sprained ulnar collateral ligament14 that kept him out of commission from June through August. Although he returned to pitch one game in September, a diagnosis of additional damage to his UCL precluded a return to the mound in 2019.15

The Angels’ overall results were not as memorable: They finished 80-82 and missed the postseason. The A’s finished second in the AL West but lost to the New York Yankees in the AL wild-card game.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. She also viewed the recorded game on YouTube (A’s broadcast).

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2018/B04080ANA2018.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ANA/ANA201804080.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIBgsLMZSR8

Notes

1 The Angels’ home opener had been Monday night, April 2. The attendance was 43,904.

2 He had a 0-1 record with a 27.00 ERA in two Cactus League outings, followed by pitching to minor leaguers. Janie McCauley, “Angels’ Ohtani Winner on Mound,” Sacramento Bee, April 2, 2018: 3C.

3 The Angels were using a six-man rotation to more closely follow Ohtani’s routine in Japan. His availability as a designated hitter in at least some games between starts made that roster construction possible. Jeff Miller, “Behind Ache-Ball, Richards Leads Off Rotation for Angels, Who Hope Extra Rest Improves Rotation,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2018: D1. Jeff Miller, “Angels Survive Late Scare,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2018: D1.

4 Dylan Hernandez, “First Homer for Ohtani Extra Special,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2018: D5. Janie McCauley, “Ohtani Wins Pitching Debut, Leads Angels over A’s 7-4,” Napa Valley Register (Napa, California), April 2, 2018: B2.

5 Greg Beacham, “Ohtani Hurls Seven Superb Innings,” Napa Valley Register, April 9, 2018: B2.

6 Pujols reached 3,000 hits on May 4, 2018.

7 Graveman’s year did not go well. After starting the year 0-5 with an 8.89 ERA, he was demoted briefly to

Triple A, then had Tommy John surgery in July. “A’s Graveman to Have Tommy John Surgery,” Napa Valley Register, July 25, 2018: B1. After taking 2019 off to recover he returned as an effective pitcher in 2020.

8 Bill Shaikin, “Ohtani Flirts with a Perfect Game,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2018: D7.

9 This was definitely Schimpf’s best game in 2018 – a homer, two walks, and two runs scored. He was sent back to the minors after the May 2 game, tried the Mexican Pacific Winter League after the 2018 season, and then was out of baseball.

10 Shaikin; Beacham.

11 Tim Fortugno was the first, in 1992. David Adler, Daniel Kramer and Manny Randhawa, “17 Amazing Ohtani Stats after 12-K Perfecto Bid,” mlb.com, April 8, 2018. https://www.mlb.com/news/facts-figures-from-shohei-ohtani-s-1-hit-gem-c271407318.

12 Shaikin.

13 He hit .285 with 22 home runs for an OPS of .925.

14 Maria Guardado, “Ohtani Has UCL Sprain, Placed on DL,” mlb.com, June 8, 2018. https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-has-ucl-sprain-c280336150. Retrieved October 23, 2022.

15 He had Tommy John surgery after the season. Alden Gonzalez, “Shohei Ohtani Slams 2 Homers after Tommy John Surgery Recommendation,” espn.com, September 5, 2018. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24588925/los-angeles-angels-say-doctors-recommended-tommy-john-surgery-pitcher-dh-shohei-ohtani.