Shohei Ohtani is exhausted.
Twice during the Angels’ recent nine-game trip, Ohtani had to be replaced by a pinch hitter because of lower-body cramps. During his team’s return to Anaheim, he pitched only four innings because of another muscular contraction, this one on the middle finger of his pitching hand.
Asked why he was cramping so often, the soft-spoken Ohtani was concise and to the point.
“Fatigue is No. 1, I think,” he said in Japanese.
He’s played in 108 games, and both hit and pitched in 21 of them. He leads the Angels in plate appearances and innings pitched, and by considerable margins.
Of course he’s tired.
The Angels have already placed an enormous wager on the 29-year-old Ohtani, not only by deciding against trading him to replenish their talent-deprived farm system, but also by acquiring reinforcements who further depleted their prospect pool.
Now, they have to gamble on Ohtani again. They have to bet that he learned from the injury-ravaged seasons he endured in his first three years with them. They have to count on him to push his body to its limit but not to its breaking point.
“I’ve always trusted him [with] his body,” manager Phil Nevin said.
What other choice does he have? Without Ohtani, what good are new additions C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk? Without Ohtani, what’s the point of Mike Trout rushing back from his wrist operation?
The Angels can’t win without Ohtani, and he knows it.
Even when Jose Soriano relieved him after he pitched four scoreless innings against the Seattle Mariners on Thursday night, Ohtani remained in the lineup in the eventual 5-3 loss as a designated hitter.
“I judged the team’s chances of winning would be higher if I was out there,” Ohtani said.
He was right.
With two outs in the sixth inning and the Angels behind by a run, Ohtani willed the Angels into the lead after the Mariners walked him intentionally. He stole second base and scored on a single to center field by Cron. When the inning was over, the Angels were ahead 2-1.
In the eighth inning, Ohtani provided an insurance run by sending a line-drive over the right-field wall for his 40th home run. Upon returning to the dugout, Ohtani grabbed a banana; the fruit is said to prevent cramps.
The heroics turned out to be a prelude to the latest heartbreak for his cursed franchise, as closer Carlos Estevez served up a grand slam to Cade Marlow in the ninth inning.
The Angels remained four games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the final wild-card spot.
Ohtani was apologetic for making the bullpen cover five innings on a night he started.
He asked Nevin to remove him from the game but not because he didn’t recognize the importance of the game. Rather, he asked Nevin to take him out because he did. Unable to bend his middle finger, he said he thought he would be a greater burden on the team if he continued to pitch.
Ohtani pointed to how the Angels were playing their 10th game in 10 days, with their schedule taking them from Anaheim to Detroit to Toronto to Atlanta and back to Anaheim. During the recent three-city tour, he reached base on more than half of his plate appearances. He reached base four more times in the series opener against the Mariners.
“I’m doing what I can to prepare physically,” he said. “I feel bad it turned out this way.”
Ohtani didn’t sound on board with a suggestion that he could benefit from a day off.
“Games that I could take off, I really don’t think there are any more games like that,” he said. “If I can, I would like to play each and every game.”
He said he was approaching these games the way he did playing for Japan in the World Baseball Classic.
“We’re still very much within striking distance,” Ohtani said. “I think every game is comparable in importance to [the games in the WBC].”
Ohtani knew what he had to do during the two-week tournament to lead Japan to the WBC title. The Angels are relying on him to know what he has to do during the next two months to return them to the playoffs. Their season depends on it.