OAKLAND — Anytime your performance summons the names of Babe Ruth and Ichiro Suzuki on the same night, it’s a pretty good night.
Shohei Ohtani reached a few significant milestones in the Angels’ 5-1 victory over the Oakland A’s on Tuesday night.
Ohtani pitched six scoreless innings to pick up his 10th victory of the season, which made him the first player in either of the two traditional major leagues to win 10 games and hit 10 homers in the same season since Ruth did so with the Boston Red Sox in 1918.
It also happened twice in the Negro Leagues after Ruth, by Ed Rile with the 1927 Detroit Stars and Bullet Rogan with the 1922 Kansas City Monarchs.
Ohtani also blasted his 25th homer of the season, which was No. 118 for his career. That passed Suzuki for second on the all-time list among Japanese players. Suzuki, who reached the majors when Ohtani was 6, was one of Ohtani’s favorite players when he was growing up in Japan. Hideki Matsui hit 175 homers in the majors, the most among Japanese players.
It was the third time in Ohtani’s career that he hit a homer and picked up a victory in the same game, which he remarkably did only one time during his MVP season last year.
Ohtani also passed 1,000 strikeouts between the majors and Japan. He now has 379 strikeouts in the majors and 624 in Japan.
It all made for quite a treat for the extra large contingent of Japanese media that had been following Ohtani during his quest for victory No. 10.
Ohtani had come up empty in his previous three starts. He also finished 2021 with nine victories, coming up short in his final three starts.
Although Ohtani gave up six runs in his July 22 start at Atlanta, in the two subsequent outings he pitched well enough to win. He gave up two and three runs.
But the Angels scored just one run while Ohtani was pitching in those three games combined.
They did much better against Oakland right-hander James Kaprielian, a product of Irvine’s Beckman High and UCLA.
Steven Duggar tripled in his first Angels at-bat in the third, and then David Fletcher drove him in with a bloop single.
In the fifth, Ohtani singled – his first hit in 12 career at-bats against Kaprielian – and then Luis Rengifo was safe on an error. Taylor Ward followed with a three-run homer, putting the Angels ahead, 4-0.
Ohtani padded the lead with a shot over the right field fence in the seventh inning.
After that, Manager Phil Nevin turned the game over to the bullpen. Ohtani was on his way to the mound for the seventh inning when Nevin stopped him and sent him back to the dugout. Nevin also removed Ohtani from the lineup.
He had done plenty already on a night that he pitched without his best stuff and took a comebacker off his leg.
Ohtani walked three, equaling his season high. He also gave up four hits. The Angels turned a double play in the first and Ward threw out Seth Brown trying to stretch a single into a double in the second.
In the third, just after Ohtani had walked two, Ramon Laureano drilled a ball up the middle and it hit Ohtani’s leg. Ohtani picked it up and threw to first for the out, then he limped off the mound.
He managed three more innings, retiring the side in order in the sixth, just before hitting his homer.
More to come on this story.
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