Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani threw the fastest pitch of his career on Saturday, firing a 101.7mph fastball in the first inning of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 9-5 loss to the Royals in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
Ohtani pitched two innings for the first time since he returned to the mound this month after a near two-year absence in the wake of elbow surgery.<\/p>\n
With one out in the first he gave up a line drive single to Bobby Witt Jr then walked Maikel Garcia.<\/p>\n
Ohtani then went up two strikes against Vinnie Pasquantino — on a 99.2 mph fastball and a 100.2 mph fastball, Pasquantino finally grounding into a double play off Ohtani’s blistering 101.7 mph four-seam fastball — the fastest pitch by a Dodgers hurler this year.<\/p>\n
Ohani retired three straight batters in the second and finished with 27 pitches, 20 of them strikes.<\/p>\n
At the plate, Ohtani struck out twice before he was taken out as pitcher, finishing the day 0-for-4.<\/p>\n
Ohtani, the reigning National Legue Most Valuable Player, returned to the mound this month for the first time since August 2023 — when he tore elbow ligaments pitching for the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n
He has starred with his bat since joining the Dodgers on a 10-year, $700 million contract in December 2023 but the team have taken a careful approach to his return to the mound.<\/p>\n
He has now pitched four innings in three outings this season with Saturday’s start his first on the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani threw the fastest pitch of his career on Saturday, firing a 101.7mph fastball in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,5414,57,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,6681,2513,2327,2321,468,185,2339,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-138495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-teams","17":"tag-fastball","18":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","19":"tag-major-league-baseball","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","24":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","26":"tag-mlb","27":"tag-mlb-playoffs","28":"tag-mlb-postseason","29":"tag-outdoor-sports","30":"tag-partners-afp","31":"tag-pitch-baseball","32":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","33":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","34":"tag-shohei-ohtani","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-sports-competitions","37":"tag-team-sports","38":"tag-turf-sports","39":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}