Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout make baseball fun in LA
In a game that saw five home runs hit, Mike Trout sets a new Angels record and Shohei Ohtani gets two including his first grand slam in MLB or Japan.
Can we put the dead ball theory to bed now, please? Game one of the Los Angeles Angels home series against the Tampa Bay Rays saw a total of five long balls hit, putting to bed the idea that the ball is somehow not allowing hitters to hit. It sounds like a cliché but the game was actually a lot closer than the score would suggest.
While it finished up 11-3, for the first six innings the Rays were within a reasonable distance, even starting out the game on top thanks to the first bomb of the night, when Randy Arozarena hit a solo shot in the third. The following inning, the Angels jumped out front with a three-run blast from Jared Walsh, and they never looked back.
The big moment came in the sixth inning, when Mike Trout hit his record breaking 161st home run in Angels Stadium of Anaheim, surpassing the legendary Tim Salmon as the all-time home run leader in Angels Stadium.
As big as that moment was for Trout and Angels fans, it went up a notch when Jalen Beeks delivered the very next pitch and Shohei Ohtani took it the opposite way for a solo shot. This is the fourth time that Trout and Sho-time have gone back-to-back, but the first one on consecutive pitches.
You might think that the night couldn’t bring any more records, but you would be wrong. In the seventh inning, Shohei Ohtani came up to face Calvin Faucher with the bases loaded and hit his first professional grand slam, in either the Major Leagues or in Japan.
This marks the eighth multi-home run game for Ohtani.
With so much of the focus of this season snow-blinded by the lockout and then hijacked by the controversial umpiring, it is refreshing to see baseball return to what it should be. Fun. The Angels are having fun and bringing some joy into this season.
There are lots of changes afoot, with the MLB-wide use of the designated hitter, the focus on speeding the game up, crazy sticky substance checks, and changes are always laced with dread. So it is reassuring to know that, in southern California at least, baseball is still something that you can tell you grandchildren about.
The Angels will face Tampa Bay again tonight and tomorrow before travelling up to the Bay Area to face the A’s. It wouldn’t be realistic to hope for another Trout-Ohtani double act, but then again, the way that the Angels are playing, you certainly wouldn’t put it past them.