Shohei Ohtani's arm injury won't keep him from hitting in series against Mets
Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani gets set to pitch during the first inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in Anaheim, Calif. Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill
The Angels are coming to Citi Field to play the Mets this weekend. Shohei Ohtani— the best baseball player in the world, the hitting-and-pitching sensation, the virtual lock for AL MVP again — will be with them, injury and all.
Ohtani has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, his team announced late Wednesday night, a blow to the sport and a major complication in what was poised to be his historic free agency after this season.
Ohtani will not pitch the rest of the year, Angels general manager Perry Minasian told reporters. He was seeking a second opinion that would clarify whether he would need another Tommy John surgery, which he also had in 2018.
In the meantime, Ohtani still will hit. He started the first game of the Angels’ doubleheader Wednesday and homered in his first at-bat but departed in the second inning because of what the team initially called a fatigued arm. After finding out between games that he had the elbow injury, he started the second game as the designated hitter.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in New York and he’s in the lineup,” Minasian said. “I know how bad he wants to play.”
Before this, Ohtani was likely to receive the largest contract in North American sports, with numbers like $500 million over 10 years routinely bandied about speculatively. But another torn UCL raises questions about the future of his two-way act, which was unprecedented in baseball history.
If he has surgery, he likely would not pitch again until 2025, when he will be turning 31. If he does return to the mound, it’s not clear for how many years he’ll be able to pitch — never mind pitch at an elite level.
This season has been Ohtani’s best. He leads the majors in home runs (44) and OPS (1.069). And he has posted career bests in each slash line category: .304/.405/.664.
He had been performing as a front-end pitcher, too, with a 3.14 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and 167 strikeouts in 132 innings.
So impressive was Ohtani’s year — and so desperate were the Angels to get him to the playoffs for the first time — that team owner Arte Moreno directed the front office to be aggressive buyers at the trade deadline, despite their poor odds. They gave up prospects from an already weak farm system to add Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk and Dominic Leone (from the Mets).
A hot streak through July made a playoff push look possible. But their season fell apart immediately after the deadline, and now the Angels have lost 16 of their past 21 games.
If Ohtani indeed does play/bat this weekend? It would be a treat.
The chance to see Ohtani — “basically a superhero,” as Brandon Nimmo put it — in person is arguably the highlight of the entire second half of the Mets’ home schedule.
The Mets featured him prominently in multiple recent marketing emails. Friday is Japanese Heritage Night, which they announced in March but now coincidentally also will feature a start by Kodai Senga, Ohtani’s countryman.
Senga declined an interview request about facing Ohtani.
“The people that watch baseball and are real fans of baseball are going to be excited to see him in person and see what he does,” Nimmo said this week before the injury development, “because there’s been such a folklore.”
Among Mets, however, there seemed to be less of an awe factor and more of a concern about trying to not let Ohtani beat them.
Adam Ottavino, about as big of a baseball fan as anybody on the roster, said the Mets’ thoughts were about “just trying to figure out how to get him out or get a hit off of him if he’s pitching.”
“As a fan, yeah, sure,” manager Buck Showalter said of understanding the hoopla. “But not a whole lot of fun trying to get him out.”
David Peterson, scheduled to start Sunday, said: “It’s great for the fans. It’ll draw a lot of attention. When you’re out there and you’re playing the game, it’s baseball.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
