Shohei Ohtani crushed a Kohei Arihara changeup to deep center field in the fourth inning Monday night, the Angels slugger so sure he had homered off his former Nippon Ham Fighters teammate that he tossed his bat aside and broke into a trot.
A few seconds later, some 400 feet away, Texas center fielder Adolis Garcia made a leaping catch of Ohtani’s drive at the top of the wall, the play emblematic of an Angels effort that fell short for most of the night in a 6-4 loss at Angel Stadium.
The Rangers broke open a 1-0 game with a five-run sixth, doing most of their damage against Angels ace Dylan Bundy, and Arihara kept the Angels off-balance with his six-pitch mix, the 28-year-old right-hander giving up two hits in 5 2/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts and two walks.
Trailing 6-0 through six, the Angels went to work against an injury- ravaged Rangers bullpen in the seventh, Justin Upton jump-starting a four-run rally with a one-out solo homer to right off left-hander Brett Martin.
Jared Walsh doubled to right, and Albert Pujols greeted right-hander Kyle Cody with an RBI single to left. Jose Iglesias singled to left, and when Cody paid no attention to Pujols, one of the slowest men in baseball took off for third to start a double steal.
Kurt Suzuki’s RBI single to right made it 6-3, and Iglesias scored on a wild pitch to make it 6-4, but Luis Rengifo struck out and David Fletcher flied out to center to end the inning.
The Angels were playing for the first time since Friday night after two weekend games against Minnesota were postponed because of multiple positive COVID-19 tests in the Twins organization, a layoff Angels manager Joe Maddon said “can almost be counterproductive” this early in the season.
They looked rusty, committing three errors and one wild pitch in the game, two of the errors fueling the Rangers’ sixth-inning rally. The Rangers took a 1-0 lead on Garcia’s solo homer in the third, and they appeared to break open the game in the sixth.
Joey Gallo led off with a walk, and Nate Lowe singled to left. Nick Solak singled sharply to right, forcing Gallo to stop at third, but when Walsh, the Angels right fielder, charged and dropped the ball, Gallo scored on the error for a 2-0 lead.
Willie Calhoun singled to left for another run, advancing Solak to third. Calhoun took second on the throw. Jose Trevino’s sacrifice fly made it 4-0, and Calhoun scored on Rengifo’s error at third for a 5-0 lead. Garcia took second on reliever Steve Cishek’s wild pitch and scored on Brock Holt’s single for a 6-0 lead.
Arihara, a Japanese Pacific league teammate, good friend and catch partner of Ohtani from 2015-2017, gave up a leadoff single to Fletcher in the first and another single to Fletcher in the sixth and nothing in between.
Mixing a 91-mph fastball with an 82-mph slider, 83-mph split-fingered fastball, 87-mph cut-fastball, 83-mph changeup and 74-mph curve, Arihara struck out Mike Trout twice and allowed only one runner to reach second base.
He and Ohtani were teammates on the 2016 Nippon Ham team that won the Japan Series, Ohtani going 10-4 with a 1.86 ERA and Arihara 11-9 with a 2.94 ERA that season. His work done, Arihara will watch from the first-base dugout as Ohtani returns to the mound Tuesday night.
Ohtani will make his first start since April 4, but the two-way star, relegated to hitting because of a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand, will not be in the lineup.
With the Angels carrying an extra reliever and one fewer position player and Ohtani on a 75-pitch limit, they don’t want to risk losing their designated hitter if Ohtani’s blister flares up early.
“With the uncertainty, I’m not gonna hit him,” Maddon said, “just in case something went awry early, and we’d have to scramble the rest of the night with a short bench.”
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