Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers is steadily advancing toward the 50-50 season. He has 46 homers and 47 steals as of Tuesday.
“50-50” is an area that no one has ever reached in the history of Major League Baseball in 140 years. Ohtani has 17 remaining games until the end of the season.
The rest of the game is important, and Ohtani was blocked by the same Japanese player on the way to the milestone.
Ohtani went 0-for-4 at home against the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium on the 11th.
Ohtani faced Imanaga three times on the day, but he failed to hit a home run. He had to turn to a fly ball to shortstop and a double play in the first and second at-bats in the third innings, respectively.
However, Ohtani hit a homerun-like hit at his third batter’s box in the fifth inning. I hit Imana’s second breaking ball, and the moment he hit the ball, there was a burst sound that made me wonder, “Is it a homerun?”
Ohtani of the at-bat also paused while reading the direction of the ball.
The ball went straight toward the fence as expected. However, right fielder Bellinger jumped on the warning track, and the ball was eventually sucked into Bellinger’s glove that collided with the fence. It was a huge hit with a flying distance of 114 meters, but had no relationship with the home run.
In his last at-bat in the eighth inning, Ohtani pulled right-hander Nate Pearson’s slider and the ball was headed to the right-center field, which was also caught by center field on the warning track. The flying distance was 112 meters.
Imanaga, who won his second ML showdown with Ohtani on the day, secured his 13th individual win along with his team’s 6-3 victory with a quality start plus of seven hits and three runs in seven innings.
The first match between Ohtani and Imanaga took place on April 8 at Wrigley Field, the home of the Cubs. They had two runs at the time, but Ohtani was unable to get on base and was all out.
He struck out swinging at the first batter’s box after a close game of full count in the first inning, and hit a fastball at the second batter’s box in the third inning, but failed to escape the infield. He was out by hitting a fly ball at the third base.
As such, Ohtani is still weak against Imana with five hits and one strikeout.
The two players faced off in different uniforms in the ML, but in last year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), they wore the same uniform and collaborated on Japan’s victory. 메이저사이트
Imanaga, who entered the ML this year, has played 160 innings and is making remarkable performances with 13 wins (3 losses), a 3.03 ERA, and 159 strikeouts.
In Japan, he was drafted by the Yokohama DeNA Baystars as the No. 1 draft pick in 2015, and played for Yokohama until 2023. In eight seasons, he recorded a 64-50-4 hold ERA of 3.18 in 165 games.
