let's get excited about...shohei otani

Moving him into th 8 spot is progressive for soscia otani is a pitcher after all

Pleased about today postponement as it forces the Angels off their lame "every Sunday" shtick. Now S.O. pitches Tuesday night at home vs Boston, with eight days' rest!

shohei don't hurt 'em

Blisters no no no no

they're saying he should be good for his next start... but Aaron Sanchez missed a good chunk of last year with blister issues they made worse by bringing him back too soon on two separate occasions.

shohei says it won't effect his hitting...maybe he's a full-time DH while he heals?

Shohei's foot speed has got to be his most underrated quality. Faster than Upton or Simmons, for example. Fastest DH by a large margin.

DH Shohei Ohtani 27.9 ft/s
RF Jarrod Dyson 29.2
CF Byron Buxton 30.6
LF Derek Fisher 29.5
SS Trea Turner 29.9
3B Scott Kingery 29.4
2B Ozzie Albies 29.1
1B Cody Bellinger 28.3
C Jorge Alfaro 27.8

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sprint_speed_leaderboard?year=2018

the slowest sprint speed in all of MLB is pujols (22.6 ft/s)

I believe you mean 22.6 s/ft

lol

i remember when he used to be pretty nimble for a big guy! seems like forever ago

batting 6th!

apparently he hit 100 eight times last night... rest of MLB has 9 this year

https://www.mlb.com/cut4/ohtani-hit-101-mph-fastest-by-starter-this-season/c-273712152

Hicks has hit 100 at least 35x this year

maybe MLB starters

Have the Angels addressed whether he'll play a position at all this season, or will he be a pure DH?

I'm only going by the boxscore, but he didn't seem to pitch particularly well yesterday.

I watched it, and he didn't.

threw gas tho

apparently he throws one (1) curveball per game; the one i saw last night was pretty decent, if mostly for the sheer surprise of him throwing something in the mid-to-high 70s

Fun game tonight so far.

Any idea why Shohei got pulled for a pinch hitter?

sprained his ankle apparently

about to start vs M's

Are we to assume he starts in the Bronx vs Tanaka next Sunday?

slotted for Wednesday night in Detroit now

apparently threw a 101 pitch last night

y'all watching?

In his first 8 starts, the opp are hitting .375 off his fastball and .081 off everything else in his repertoire.

basketball game on tonight iirc

Left the game in the fifth, was blowing on his pitching hand... blisters?

yeah blister is what I'm hearing too

James:
Do the Angels need to change how they use Ohtani to maximize their potential? Even as a rival fan it is tough to watch Scioscia send Pujols and Kinsler out at the top of the order while Ohatni sits a third of the time.

Jay Jaffe:
I think they can push Ohtani harder as far as DH duty goes, but given his blister issues and workload concerns, I don’t see them pushing him harder on the mound. Scioscia needs to bat Kinsler much lower in the lineup, and Arte needs to authorize Pujols’ release, but those are separate issues from Ohtani’s usage.

Even as a rival fan it is tough to watch Scioscia send Pujols and Kinsler out at the top of the order while Ohatni sits a third of the time.

Kinsler has been warming up: .900 OBP with 4 HRs over the past 2 weeks.

Otani is .750 over the same stretch (and now will be possibly benched until his blisters subside).

uh oh

Shohei Ohtani will be placed on the disabled list with a grade 2 sprain of the UCL. He underwent a PRP and Stem Cell injection yesterday with Dr. Steve Yoon in Los Angeles. He will be re-evaluated in 3 weeks and we will update his plan of care at that time.

— Angels PR (@LAAngelsPR) June 8, 2018

oh please no

I guess the blister was on his UCL... lol.

Poor guy, I really hope this doesn't turn out like Daisuke Matsuzaka pt 2.

I'mma lobby for a minimum of 6 DL spots on any fantasy league I join next year.

well there goes his All-Star DH spot

i guess the rest of MLB is gonna suck along with the Mets now

Baseball just got a lot less interesting this year.

I'm trying to recall the last time a black magic solution for avoiding TJ surgery actually worked ...?

tanaka is the only example i can recall

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23737157/mlb-need-know-shohei-ohtani-injury

“Everything I’m hearing is that the reality is, he probably will need Tommy John surgery,” @pedrogomezESPN reports grim news for Shohei Ohtani and @Angels just now on @sportscenter. “The earliest we might see him, should he have TJ surgery, would be the 2020 season.”

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 11, 2018

this reminds me a lot of Strasburg

this really sucks

Source: #Angels cautiously optimistic Shohei Ohtani will play again this season — at least as a hitter and possibly in both roles. @MLB @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) June 11, 2018

Scioscia said the Angels’ medical staff is “very optimistic” about Shohei Ohtani’s prognosis. Still two to three weeks from seeing whether PRP injection took hold. Ohtani is taking one-armed swings in batting cage.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) June 18, 2018

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/shohei-ohtani-and-the-implications/

TS: ohtani batting with one arm vs pujols

lol

https://deadspin.com/the-story-of-shohei-ohtanis-legendary-bp-sessions-from-1827115452

sigh

straight lol at hyperbole-comparisons of soft-toss BP to in-game (esp World Series) dongs.

if people in the game are saying it, it probably means something

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/06/shohei-ohtani-cleared-to-begin-hitting-program.html

While Ohtani certainly isn’t entirely out of the woods just yet, it’s obviously an encouraging update for the Angels that the platelet-rich plasma and stem cell injections he received earlier this month have resulted in some meaningful improvement. Eppler indicated yesterday that if Ohtani were strictly a designated hitter, he’d likely have been cleared right away. That, coupled with today’s clearance, makes it seem likely that Ohtani will, at the very least, return to the Angels’ lineup at some point this summer — if not the rotation.

0-for-4 in his return last night