Trusting him early shows how much he has changed for him on the embankment in one year. “He’s just gradually getting to know his fastball better – that’s what I think is the big difference,” Angels coach Joe Maddon said after his side’s 3-1 defeat to the Houston Astros at the start of the season. “And you saw it again tonight – many decades 97 and 99. In the past, the first part of the game was smaller numbers until it needed it. Right now, even when it doesn’t need to, it still does these things.” 2 About Ohtani – limited, like all Angels’s starters, to 80 pitches due to short training in the spring – allowed a four-stroke run in 4 innings against one of the league’s most dangerous elevens, with one walk and nine strokes. . Three of those blows came against Altouve, who had hit three times in a game only three times in the previous 11 seasons of the major league. Despite the reduced number of pitches, Ohtani threw seven 99mph pitches, the three most in his career. The average speed on its four-seater fastball, which seemed to show a bit more cutting action, was 97.8 mph, more than two ticks higher than last year’s average. The result of this stadium significantly strengthened its slider, which produced seven odors in nine cots. Ohtani, coming from his unanimous choice as the most valuable player in the American League, started the spring training talking about how much stronger he felt. It may appear on a fast ball that can consistently approach a three-digit number. “I hope so,” Ochtani said through his interpreter. “It will be a great season, so I do not know how the fatigue will play, but I will try to pick my points and throw hard.” A sold-out crowd of 44,723 crowds at Angel Stadium to watch Ohtani follow arguably the most impressive season in baseball history, when he combined a 0.965 OPS with 46 home runs and 26 stolen bases as a player with a 3.18 ERA and 156 hits in 130⅓ hits as a pizzeria. Taking the ball at the top of the first and leading in the bottom half of the inning, Ohtani became the first player in history to throw and face the first court of his team’s season. The attack of the Angels faced the left Framber Valdez of Astros, who made a 6⅔ inning without a score and at some point withdrew 15 consecutive batters. But they finally broke with two outs in the eighth, when David Fletcher’s line-up dipped Jordan Alvarez into the left court, scoring Brandon Mars and bringing the equalizer to the plate. Ohtani climbed in, firing a 98 mph ball that initially upset the crowd, but was eventually caught on the edge of the grass. “I thought he might have a chance to leave,” Ohtani said after a night of 0-for-4 attacking. “I just fell a little below that.” Ohtani walked away as a pitcher with one inside and two outs in the fifth, in part because Maddon wanted to use left-back Aaron Loup to attack left-hander Michael Brantley. Returning to the boat, Maddon approached Ohtani to ask if he wanted to stay in the game and take advantage of a new rule that allows him to keep hitting even after the pitching is over. Ohtani’s response: “Of course.” By the end of the night, Ohtani said, he had almost forgotten he had played. He treated the last third of the game as if he were the determined player – and almost equalized the score while doing so. “Nothing is too fast for him,” Madon said. “Nothing is too big for him.”
