gave Los Angeles a 5-3 lead in the seventh<\/a> that proved to be enough for the win.<\/p>\nAll three of the Phillies’ runs off Ohtani came in the bottom of the second inning. Third baseman Alec Bohm led off the frame with a well-worked, full-count walk. His 2-1 take on a nasty Ohtani cutter a smidge beyond the zone flipped the plate appearance and the inning. Working from the stretch, Ohtani\u2019s fastball command appeared to worsen, and the Phillies immediately took advantage, with the hirsute Brandon Marsh cranking a 100-mph, middle-middle heater into center field for a single.<\/p>\n
Then came the crucial swing of Ohtani\u2019s night: a rocket, two-run RBI triple off J.T. Realmuto\u2019s bat. Once more, Ohtani hucked a triple-digit heater down the pipe. Realmuto didn\u2019t miss it, keeping his hands inside the pitch and driving it into the right-center-field gap. Hern\u00e1ndez, the right fielder, took a questionable route to the ball, which rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Marsh to score from first. Two batters later, Harrison Bader lofted a sacrifice fly to deep center, scoring Realmuto.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
But then Ohtani struck out Bryson Stott to stop the bleeding and proceeded to retire the next seven Phillies in order. He plunked Bader and surrendered a curling, line-drive single to Stott in the bottom of the fifth but then retired Turner on a soft liner to short and set Schwarber down swinging. Ohtani came back out for the sixth and recorded two more strikeouts before a lengthy top of the seventh by his own offense precipitated a pitching change.<\/p>\n
“I just believe that his whole life has been about preparing him for big moments,” Roberts said pregame. “He never gets out of himself, never lets the emotions or the moment get too big. Seems like he’s always under control.”<\/p>\n
Ohtani’s magnificent showing on the mound should serve as a salve for what has been a brutal night for him at the plate. He has so far struck out in all four of his plate appearances, something he did only two times this season. Even so, Los Angeles\u2019 deep offense picked up their superstar with a three-spot in the seventh.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
In other words, if the score holds, nobody will remember Ohtani\u2019s 0-for-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Once again, somehow, Shohei Ohtani delivered a baseball first. Since making his MLB debut in 2018,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[24618,64,63,15063,17856,22726,10214,5138,74708,33137,22729,5152,28796,591,5136,5137,5149,85,10222,22727,5784],"class_list":{"0":"post-190647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alec-bohm","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-brandon-marsh","12":"tag-bryce-harper","13":"tag-bryson-stott","14":"tag-dave-roberts","15":"tag-dodgers","16":"tag-emilee-chinn","17":"tag-harrison-bader","18":"tag-j-t-realmuto","19":"tag-kyle-schwarber","20":"tag-mike-trout","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-philadelphia","23":"tag-phillies","24":"tag-shohei-ohtani","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-teoscar-hernandez","27":"tag-trea-turner","28":"tag-tyler-glasnow"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}