Shohei Ohtani: The Next Babe Ruth?

There are plenty of intriguing story lines so far in the first month of the 2018 season.  With still 5 days left in the month, MLB has already set a record with 28 weather cancellations in April, including a wild one in Toronto in which the retractable roof broke due to falling ice.  As of this post, Albert Pujols is only 6 hits shy of 3,000.  The Mets and Red Sox have gotten off to surprisingly hot starts, while Rob Manfred and all of South Florida are about ready to crucify Derek Jeter for his mission to field the worst team in baseball history.  But the biggest story of all has to be the young dual-threat Japanese phenom - Shohei Ohtani.

Ohtani is attempting to do something that has not been done regularly and successfully in nearly a century - spend an entire season as both a starting pitcher and hitter.  He was quite successful at this in Japan before signing with Anaheim, posting a .286 average and 2.52 ERA in 5 seasons with the Nippon Ham Fighters, including a 2016 Pacific League MVP award.  Understandably, nearly every American baseball analyst doubted this would translate to the US, or that he would even start the year in the majors, despite immediately being branded as MLB's #1 prospect.  Many thought his hitting would be a gimmick to sell tickets for awhile before he eventually transitioned to a full-time pitcher.  However, in the first month of the season, Ohtani has more than held his own both in the box and on the rubber:

     Batting:  .333 BA, .997 OPS, 3 HR and 11 RBI in 11 games

     Pitching:  2-1, 4.43 ERA, 26 Ks in 20.1 IP

The Angels generally have been letting him pitch one day a week (which is customary in Japan), and DH'ing 2-3 times in between starts.  He has not pitched in a National League park yet, which will be a nightmare for whoever that team ends up being.  The big question marks for him coming into the league were if he would be able to handle the inside pitch as a hitter, would he be able to control his 100+MPH heat on the mound, and could he withstand the rigors of a longer MLB season?  So far he is proving people wrong.  Pitchers in Japan did not dare throw anything on the inside half of the plate when he was hitting to avoid the shame of injuring Japan's biggest baseball star, but he has had some of his biggest hits on high-inside heat this year, including an impressive bases-clearing triple in a game last week.  He did struggle with his command in his last start, issuing 5 walks, but he also struck out 7 - including reigning MVP Jose Altuve twice - and touched 100 MPH 8 times on the gun.  He has logged over half of the 100 MPH readings this year in all of MLB combined.

Only time will tell if he will be able to keep this up, but for now it is really fun to watch.  As 23-year old it would lead me to believe he is only going to improve in both areas as he learns how to pitch and grows into his body, especially given his reported work ethic.  Let's get to the elephant in the room here - Ohtani is doing things that have not been done since Babe Ruth during his tenure with the Red Sox.  Whether it is fair or not to compare a rookie Japanese prospect to arguably the greatest player of all time, it was bound to happen as he is the only true comparison.  Will Ohtani be the next Babe Ruth, or more like the next Brooks Kieschnick?  Likely somewhere in between, but who knows?  Japanese pitchers tend to flame out early in their careers because of how early they start oversees, so perhaps he focuses on pitching now and becomes a DH in the latter half of his career?  If you ask 100 people about Ohtani you will get 100 opinions and that is what is so intriguing about this unprecedented talent.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 04.26:
Brewers 16-9 (4 @ Cubs, 3 @ Reds, 3 v. Pirates)
Reds 5-19 (3 @ Twins, 3 v. Brewers, 3 v. Marlins)
Twins 8-11 (3 v. Reds, 3 v. Blue Jays, 4 @ White Sox)

2018 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 2 (+4 worked)
Peter - 3

Creighton Baseball at TD Ameritrade Park

All photos of Creighton Blue Jays game available on Flickr.

I made my 15th(!) work trip to Omaha a couple of weeks ago and decided to return to TD Ameritrade Park to watch a Creighton baseball game instead of the Storm Chasers.  The Blue Jays use the park as their home field in an effort to justify building a brand new ballpark for basically one event, and judging by their record the last couple of years it is clearly a fantastic recruiting tool.  I was curious to see what the atmosphere would be like for a regular season collegiate game as opposed to the packed house of the College World Series.  The answer is that it could not have been more of a night and day difference.  The box score may tell you that the attendance was 1186, but I believe I counted only 150 fans at one point.  Either there were a ton of people staying warm in the suites, or a lot of season ticket holders did not want to brave the 40° temperature.  Regardless, it worked out well for me as I got a walkup seat for $10 only a few rows back from home plate.  I was also not too far from the Creighton dugout, from which their encouraging cheers were emanating so audibly that I almost felt like I was part of the team.

Given the cold weather (although given what we are getting hit with now it seemed almost tropical in hindsight), I took a lap around the stadium to stay warm.  I did not really notice anything different from my last visit in 2016, and it would have been easy to notice any changes given the emptiness of the park.  Literally only two concession stands were open and all that they had was your standard ballpark fare - dogs, popcorn, etc.  The one I went to was probably the lady's first ever customer and I had to coach her on tapping a beer.  I'm not saying I was expecting anything more; in fact this was exactly what I was expecting.  I just always find humor in going to games where the players and coaches outnumber the fans.  I stood in the bathroom with my Coors Light for awhile to stay warm and headed to my seat.

Creighton jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the first three innings against Kansas State, and it made me feel better about only making it 6 innings before I tapped out.  K-State starter Jarod Marolf got the loss in only 2 innings of work, but it was his successor on the mound Andrew Stratman who had the poorest showing.  He lasted only 2/3rds of an innings, giving up 5 unearned runs on only 1 hit and 3 walks.  That one hit was a bases-loaded double by leadoff man Clark Brinkman.  It's always hard to focus on game action when it's cold and you're unfamiliar with the players, but the hitter who most stood out to me was Creighton's cleanup hitter, Will Robertson.  He went 2-4 with a 2-run triple and absolutely smoked the ball all 3 plate appearances I saw him.  I actually stayed an inning longer than I wanted to just so I could watch him hit a third time.  On the pitching side, the Creighton starter was quite impressive.  Preston Church got the win by pitching into the 6th, and was only pulled because of a strict pitch count.  He gave up no runs on 2 hits striking out 3.  He had an average fastball but decent breaking stuff located well that kept the Wildcat hitters off balance all night.

I left in the 7th and it looks like the Blue Jays hung on for the 8-3 win.  As of right now my last scheduled visit to Omaha for awhile will be in June, which I'm hoping lines up perfectly with yet another return trip to the College World Series.

starters - Jared Marolf (KSU) v. Preston Church (CRE)
opponent - Kansas State Wildcats
time of game - 3:14
attendance - 1180
score - 8-3 W
Brewers score that day - 6-0 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 04.16:
Brewers 8-8 (3 v. Reds, 4 v. Marlins, 2 @ Royals)
Reds 2-13 (3 @ Brewers, 3 @ Cards, 4 v. Braves)
Twins 7-4 (2 v. Indians [San Juan], 3 @ Rays, 4 @ Yankees)

2018 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 2 (+4 worked)
Peter - 2

Another Cold Brewers Home Opener

All photos of 2018 Brewers Home Opener available on Flickr.

The Brewers started on the road for the first time since 2012 and opened the season about as hot as you can, sweeping a 3-game series from the Padres.  They won a pitchers duel in extra innings on Thursday and two comeback wins Friday and Saturday, and all three were quite impressive.  Chase Anderson and Brent Suter looked great, the bullpen looked phenomenal, and new acquisitions Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich gave Brewer Nation a glimpse of things to come, both hitting over .500 on the series.

As hot as they were over the weekend, they came back down to earth a little bit yesterday losing 8-4 to the rival Cardinals.  It sure seems like the Brewers lose every year on Opening Day at this point - in fact I checked, and they are now 4-7 on the home openers I have been to including losing the last 4.  If you take out the 6th inning, they actually didn't play that bad.  The defense and offense looked stellar once again and Eric Thames even decided to contribute today with a homerun and a double.  Maybe he will have another magical April like he did last year?  Things were going pretty smoothly for starter Zach Davies until he gave up a homerun to mustachioed journeyman pitcher Miles Mikolas, which was also his first major league hit at age 29.  Manny Pina and Lo Cain also homered for the Brewers in the loss.

For the 3rd or 4th year in row, it was just as cold outside as the team was inside.  In fact we didn't even tailgate this year, but part of that was because we had our daughter Molly there at her first Brewers game!  Unfortunately she could not bring home the win, but she did great - other than managing to poop through 4 layers of clothing, but we don't need to relive that here on the internet.  The Brewers (as I'm sure every team does) gave us a certificate for her first game and it was certainly a day and a game I'll never forget. 

Besides our daughter and families being in attendance, I was also looking forward to seeing the supposed club level renovations this year.  They were actually not as extensive as I would have hoped, as the meat and bones of the level remained unchanged.  The renovations were mostly limited to finishes and cosmetic things.  For instance, there used to be aerial photos of all the parks the Brewers have played hung on the walls outside the suites; those were replaced with a nice end-grain wood wall and some accent paint.  There was also a nacho bar and an auxiliary seating area added down the 1st base side of the level.  But the main area where we spend half our time - the team store and bar - were totally unchanged.  There is plenty of opportunity to at least double the size of that bar, and it was disappointing to see it exactly the same.  This area gets so crowded when the weather is too cold, too hot, or if the Brewers are losing by a lot, which let's be honest adds up to like 3/4ths of the season.  And the one finish I was hoping to see them replace was the awful carpeting, and as far as I could tell it was the same.  The changes made were nice but did not go far enough.  I will say that I appreciate the Brewers putting most of their money into the parts of the park accessible to everybody.  It's hard to complain too much about expensive private areas not being nicer.  One welcome addition on the main level was the mother's nursing suite.  The Brewers are now only the 2nd MLB team to have such an area and I am sure Megan will be checking out later this season.

Another exciting season is finally upon us - PLAY BALL!

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 04.03:
Brewers 3-1 (4 v. Cubs, 3 @ Cardinals, 3 @ Mets)
Reds 1-3 (4 @ Pirates, 3 @ Phillies, 4 v. Cardinals)
Twins 2-2 (3 v. Mariners, 3 v. Astros, 3 @ White Sox)

2018 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 2
Peter - 1