ANAHEIM, Calif. — The red flags for Shohei Ohtani, the warning signs that the blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand is starting to heat up, are obvious. The Angels right-hander will start looking at his fingers between pitches. He’ll get a little fidgety on the mound. His command will start to waver.
“We’re at a point where we’re secure and feel good enough that he’s going to go out there and it’s not going to be an issue,” Angels interim pitching coach Matt Wise said Tuesday afternoon, “but it’s going to be one of those things we monitor very closely and keep an eye on him.”
Ohtani will take the mound Tuesday night against the Texas Rangers in Angel Stadium, his first start since April 4, when his blister flared up against the Chicago White Sox and relegated the two-way star to only hitting for the next two weeks.
Ohtani will be on a limit of about 75 pitches and will not hit, the Angels not wanting to “scramble the rest of the night with a short bench if something went awry early,” manager Joe Maddon said.
Ohtani has had blister issues throughout his career, but he said Monday night that this blister was caused by the way he grips his four-seam fastball across the seams, not the split-fingered fastball, a pitch he grips by jamming the ball between his index and middle fingers.
“I used to get blisters on the inside part of my [middle] finger when I would throw the splitters, but nothing was forming from the splitter,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “It’s mainly the four-seamer.”
Ohtani is not about to scrap a four-seam fastball that touches 100 mph, but is there a way he can ease the stress on his middle finger when he throws his heater? Should he throw the pitch less often?
“I don’t think it’s a grip change, or a pitch usage change, it’s just getting to the point to where we can slowly but surely build up the tolerance on those fingers,” Wise said. “We think we’ve done that. It’s going to be something we have to be aware of moving forward, but he looks good and he’s ready to go tonight.”
