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Mookie Betts on Shohei Ohtani’s greatness: ‘It’s unexplainable’<\/p>\n
Mookie Betts chats with Mackenzie Salmon about what it’s like to be teammates with Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n
Sports Seriously<\/p>\n
BALTIMORE \u2014 Like any athlete, Shohei Ohtani<\/a>, the globe’s most talented ballplayer, loves his routine, be it preparing to launch longballs over the fence or dominate opposing hitters. It is the fulcrum to his unprecedented workload as a two-way player reaching unprecedented heights.<\/p>\n That’s not to say Ohtani isn’t ready to junk it and help out the team on short notice as needed.<\/p>\n When Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> right-hander Tyler Glasnow<\/a> told coaches and trainers he was suffering back stiffness, the struggling club was left in a tight spot. Ohtani was scheduled to pitch Monday after suffering through a mild illness that relegated him to simply hitting earlier this week in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n Yet around 2 p.m., Ohtani discussed the notion of starting hours later with pitching coach Mark Prior. And the Dodgers had their Friday starter.<\/p>\n Now, it’s hardly an unprecedented act of gallantry for a pitcher to move up a couple days, particularly when he had extra rest built in. Yet the episode illustrated to the Dodgers that their greatest player is far from a diva.<\/p>\n In case of emergency, break glass and enjoy the Sho.<\/p>\n “He is learning, as most people are, that he\u2019s capable of making adjustments,” says Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “And I think routine is great. But I also think the desire, the will to read and react, to adjust, that\u2019s still possible, too.<\/p>\n “Shohei, to his credit, wants to pick us up. And I really admire him for that.”<\/p>\n Ohtani, making just his 12th start of the season on his road back from a second Tommy John surgery, was up to the task, even as Roberts intimated that a virus that slowed him in Pittsburgh would hold him back a bit.<\/p>\n Ohtani nonetheless shut out the Orioles over 3 2\/3 innings, striking out five and leaving one baserunner on for reliever Anthony Banda, who left it stranded.<\/p>\n The impromptu start and the illness that precipitated it were but a mild setback in Ohtani’s steady buildup this season. In his last outing, he went five innings and struck out 10 against the Cincinnati Reds.<\/p>\n But Ohtani, who has struck out 49 in 36 innings this season, was largely dominant against the Orioles, exceeding 100 mph on 11 pitches and was pulled after 70 throws on a 84-degree night.<\/p>\n “He\u2019s exhausted after an inning or two, it\u2019s muggy, he\u2019s still sick. He gave it his all,” says first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose home run accounted for the lone Dodgers run. “It\u2019s amazing what he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s throwing 100, 101.<\/p>\n “We\u2019ll be saying this every year about Shohei Ohtani until he retires. He\u2019s a unicorn.”<\/p>\n It was a key boost of adrenaline for the Dodgers, who are clinging to a two-game lead over the San Diego Padres and fading further in the race for a first-round bye. They arrived in Baltimore having got swept out of Steel City by the lowly Pirates.<\/p>\n Ohtani could only do so much, though. The Dodgers lost 2-1 on a walk-off homer by Samuel Basallo and have dropped four consecutive games<\/p>\n In that sense, Ohtani taking the ball wasn’t a pick-me-up solely from the innings he gives them.<\/p>\n “I think it will,” says Roberts of providing a jolt for a club that has lost five of its last six games. “For a guy who\u2019s a starter that\u2019s got a routine and going to pitch a couple days later to then change course, speaks a lot for what this team needs. I expect our guys to respond to that.”<\/p>\n On this night, the offense was not up to the task, even if Ohtani’s friends in the bullpen were with 6 1\/3 innings of two-run ball.<\/p>\n “Over the course of a long season it\u2019s understandable these things can happen,’ says Ohtani through team translator Will Ireton. “Even though there are times I might not be able to do the routine I usually do, this is a situation where you have to move on and be a good teammate.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mookie Betts on Shohei Ohtani’s greatness: ‘It’s unexplainable’ Mookie Betts chats with Mackenzie Salmon about what it’s like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[290,5,39,1723,815,1599,12987,1165,4332,4333,289,774,57,3224,4331,4,306,319,169,1258,300,316,301,1257,468,185,317,529,786],"class_list":{"0":"post-296180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-freddie","12":"tag-freddie-freeman","13":"tag-freeman","14":"tag-glasnow","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-dodgers","17":"tag-ladodgers","18":"tag-los","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-losangelesdodgers","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-news","27":"tag-ohtani","28":"tag-overall","29":"tag-overall-positive","30":"tag-positive","31":"tag-shohei","32":"tag-shohei-ohtani","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-sports-news","35":"tag-tyler","36":"tag-tyler-glasnow"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296180","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=296180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}