ANAHEIM, Calif. _ When the pyrotechnics and video board montages stopped casting a red glow across Angel Stadium in the fourth inning Saturday night, three Angels players hovered in each other's orbits after crushing home runs in consecutive at-bats. One of them slung his arms over the dugout railing, another sat next to a hitting coach a few feet away, and the third stood up straight to quickly flex his arm muscles for someone in the Angels' dugout.
The moment felt final, and in a way it was. The Angels led by four runs then and the Seattle Mariners never got any closer. The Angels (31-34) went on to win 12-3 before an announced 40,569.
But the entertaining aspect about the man flashing his biceps was that it was Shohei Ohtani, the Angels' two-way player who became a major league sensation last year in his first season coming over from Japan. And across the field from Ohtani sat a dejected Yusei Kikuchi, the latest marquee Japanese player to join the major leagues, turning his glove over on the bench as he sat in isolation.
The Angels had not hit back-to-back-to-back home runs since a game against the Mariners in Seattle on Sept. 3, 2016. Kikuchi allowed it to happen Saturday, serving up homers to Tommy La Stella, Mike Trout and Ohtani in succession on his first four pitches of the fourth inning. The sluggers, who combined have hit 37 homers this season, clobbered those baseballs a combined distance of 1,243 feet.
Three batters later, Kikuchi was sent to the bench. When his outing was officially over, he had given up seven runs (six earned) on nine hits and three walks.
The tussle between Ohtani and Kikuchi, who played at Hanamaki Higashi High School in the Iwate Prefecture in Japan but were not teammates, had been anticipated by Japanese media members for months. It almost occurred nine days ago in Seattle, but manager Brad Ausmus chose to give his designated hitter a day off. Reporters from their shared Japanese hometown returned to their editors empty-handed.
The matchup finally happened Saturday. Kikuchi threw him a first-pitch 94-mph fastball that almost clipped him in the chin. A few pitches later, Ohtani beat out a ground ball for a two-out infield single, his first of three hits on the night against the Mariners (27-41). He scored on Kevan Smith's two-run single.
Ohtani grounded out in his second at-bat, but his home run to left-center field to cap the Angels' power show was all he needed to emerge victorious from the first showdown.
