ANAHEIM, Calif. — Earlier this season, Shohei Ohtani’s pitching starts were riveting affairs — for better or worse.
The right-hander, then struggling with his fastball command, would walk a lot of batters, get into tricky jams, then escape with wicked splitters and wipeout sliders. He limited damage, though struggled to work very deep into games. He was pitching well, but still had room to grow.
Lately, Ohtani’s recent starts have become almost routine — in all the best ways.
He works quick, benefitting from improved command with the four-seamer and an increasingly effective cutter. He stays out of trouble, issuing walks to fewer than 4% of batters since the start of July. And he makes quality starts (at least six innings, no more than three earned runs) look easy, pitching his fifth-straight on Thursday in the Angels’ 6-3 win against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Where there were once dramatics, there’s now just dominance; instead of suspense, just a suffocating barrage.
And on Thursday — with a six-inning, two-run, six-strikeout performance — Ohtani provided more than enough once again to lift the Angels (58-58) to a four-game series split.
Ohtani began the night strong with a scoreless first inning, including a strike out of George Springer amid a chorus of boos hurled toward the former Houston Astros outfielder (who was with that club during the 2017 sign-stealing scandal).
Then, Ohtani walked to the plate as the leadoff batter in the bottom of the first — playing both ways for the 14th time in 17 starts this year — and laced a double the other way into left-center field.
Ohtani returned to the plate during a four-run second inning for the Angels, drawing a walk and later scoring on Jared Walsh’s two-run single (Kurt Suzuki and Phil Gosselin also had RBIs in the frame).
Meanwhile, he kept cruising on the rubber, yielding his only two runs of the night in the fourth inning when Teoscar Hernandez hit an RBI single and Randal Grichuk drove in another with a double. It was the first time since June 30 Ohtani had given up more than one run in an inning.
Perhaps the most memorable at-bat of that frame, though: A five-pitch strikeout of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., when Ohtani (MLB’s home run leader) fanned Guerrero Jr. (who has the second-most homers in the majors) with a two-strike slider that tumbled out of the zone.
Guerrero Jr., who had a single in the first inning, faced Ohtani one more time in the sixth, drawing a full-count walk. But Ohtani responded, getting Hernandez to line out before whiffing Lourdes Gurriel Jr. with a slider on his final pitch of the night.
By then, the Angels had added to their lead with runs in the third inning via a Kurt Suzuki RBI double and the fifth on a Jo Adell RBI single. And after Ohtani exited, Austin Warren and Raisel Iglesias combined for three innings of relief.
The win moved the Angels back to .500 for the 22nd time this season, a mark that without Ohtani’s two-way dominance — and continued midseason development on the mound, where he now has a 7-1 record — would likely otherwise be far beyond their reach.
