This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger's Angels Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ANAHEIM -- When Shohei Ohtani was asked to show off his pitch grips in a video for TIME magazine on June 28, he demonstrated his grips for his fastball, splitter, slider, cutter and curveball, but when asked to show his sinker grip, he laughed and said in English that he didn't throw a sinker.
Ohtani was telling the truth at the time, as he didn't throw a two-seam fastball or a sinker until recently. But Ohtani, who first unveiled it against the Marlins on July 6 after tinkering with it in a few bullpen sessions, is now throwing a two-seamer with more regularity and he leaned on it heavily in a strong start against the Astros on Saturday. Ohtani allowed one run over eight innings and threw his two-seamer a career-high 18 times, as MLB.com’s Sarah Wexler wrote.
It's yet another update to Ohtani's incredible arsenal, as he also added his cutter last year and constantly works to improve his pitches. MLB.com’s David Adler did a deep dive on Ohtani’s sinker, which reached as high as 100.6 mph against Houston. At its peak, it had 21 inches of horizontal movement to his arm side and 20 inches of drop, per Statcast.
“I mean, you can see it,” said interim manager Phil Nevin. “It's got 17-18 inches of run across the plate, and it's still at 98-99 miles an hour. That's a pretty tough pitch to handle for any hitter, [and] certainly as a right-handed hitter.”
Ohtani said he's continuing to feel more comfortable with the pitch, as he threw it just once in Miami, six times against the Mariners on Aug. 15 and six times in Toronto on Aug. 27 before using it more against the Astros on Saturday. He gave up two hits on the pitch but also registered seven called strikes, including a strikeout looking.
“I felt really good about it, for the most part,” Ohtani said through interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. “Gave up a couple hits, but I was able to locate it where I wanted to and I was able to throw a lot of them, so that was really good.”
Ohtani has pitched like an ace this season, posting a 2.58 ERA with 181 strikeouts in a career-high 136 innings. He leads the Majors with 12 strikeouts per nine innings. And he’s also been heating up at the plate, including homering twice on Monday against the Tigers, giving him a team-leading 32 blasts on the season. He also tied Troy Glaus’ club record with six multihomer games this season.
His teammate Matt Duffy said Ohtani is deserving of being named the American League MVP for a second straight season, as he’s in what figures to be a close race with the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who leads the Majors with 54 homers.
“People were talking about Judge for MVP, and I'm just like, he's got to break [Roger] Maris’ record to even be in the conversation for me,” Duffy said. “Some people might think that's ridiculous in New York, I'm sure. But [Ohtani] does it on both sides of the ball. I mean, it's insane. There really are no words for it. And there's a reason why nobody's done it since Babe Ruth, I guess. But how exceptional he is on two sides of the ball, it’s just, you run out of words because there are none.”