Angels Skipping Shohei Ohtani’s Next Start Due to Arm Fatigue
Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani will not take the mound as his team concludes a six-game road trip versus the Texas Rangers this week.
Ohtani asked to skip his next start while he recovers from arm fatigue, Angels manager Phil Nevin revealed on Sunday. The 29-year-old star was previously scheduled to start at Globe Life Field against the Rangers on Wednesday.
Based on Los Angeles’ current staff alignment, Griffin Canning or Reid Detmers are the likeliest choices to pitch in place of Ohtani, with Patrick Sandoval and Lucas Giolito starting the first two games in Texas.
The Japanese icon shouldn’t miss more than one turn through the rotation, as Nevin is confident he’ll return as a pitcher when the team begins a series at home against the Cincinnati Reds on August 21st.
“I’ve told you guys many times he knows his body better than anybody,” Nevin said prior to Sunday’s 2-1 victory over the Houston Astros. “I trust him when he talks about it. He’s assured me there’s no pain, there’s no injury. He’s got some regular arm fatigue that some go through at times. I trust him when he tells me this and he’ll be ready for his next time out.”
Ohtani has experienced other minor ailments this season, including a finger injury and hamstring tightness – neither of which caused him to miss significant time. And this recent one will likely fall into that category as well.
While this season’s AL MVP front-runner is taking a rest from carrying the Angels’ pitching staff, he’ll do nothing of the sort at the plate and continue taking reps as their primary designated hitter.
“He feels good at the plate,” Nevin said. “He feels healthy swinging at bat. It’s just the (throwing) right now, he’s got some normal arm fatigue that happens at times.”
The 6-foot-4 lefty quieted any health concerns about his hitting stroke by crushing his AL-leading 41st home run during Sunday’s finale in Houston – a 448-foot solo shot that earned Los Angeles its 59th victory of 2023.
With it, Ohtani now sits two back of Atlanta’s Matt Olson (43) for the major-league lead.
After capturing the 2021 AL MVP, Ohtani is practically a slam dunk to win his second career player-of-the-year trophy this season, thanks to his dominating efforts as both a hitter and a pitcher.
At the plate, the three-time All-Star leads the majors in SLG (.665), OPS (1.073) and wRC+ (183), ranking third in fWAR (5.9) – which is also a career-high. He sits first among AL hitters in OBP (.408), third in RBIs (84) and fourth in AVG (.305).
Ohtani hasn’t been as effective on the bump versus previous seasons, at least for his standards, but he still features the lowest OPP AVG (.184) among qualified major-league starters. His 31.4 percent strikeout rate is also third-highest, behind Kevin Gausman (32.5%) and Spencer Strider (37.9%).
If that weren’t enough, the right-handed hurler also leads all Angels starters in innings pitched (130.2), ERA (3.17), xERA (3.83), strikeouts (165) and fWAR (2.3).
Even with Ohtani putting the team on his back, the Angels are just 3-9 since going all-in at the August 1st trade deadline and 59-60 overall, putting them 6.5 games back of the Toronto Blue Jays for the final AL wild-card seed. Thus, FanGraphs has their crumbling playoff odds at just 1.7 percent.
Barring an earth-shattering surge from Mike Trout, who hopes to return from a broken hamate bone before the end of August, the Angels are likely headed for a ninth straight season of missing the postseason.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @ThomasHall85
Photo: Jeffrey Hayes. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.