Shohei Ohtani mashes, balks twice (?), and defeats Greg Gibson (0-1)

Angels 6 Diamondbacks 5

Shohei Ohtani has come off a string of electric performances at the plate and recently on the mound, too. It’s always a great day when Friday and an Ohtani start just happen to line up together.

Right on cue, Ohtani didn’t disappoint, getting out to a blistering start. He didn’t even need any offspeed pitches for several innings – who needs ’em when you have this filth?

In the third inning, Ohtani hit this baseball off his shin which bothered him for the rest of the night. He wasn’t taken out but it clearly affected him. He absolutely crushed a double following this (same AB and first of two doubles), but rounded the bases with the gracefulness of a crippled gazelle.

He also compensated for being unable to push off this leg by throwing harder (amping from mid 90s to the upper 90s). He should have been taken out of the game at this point but stayed in to pitch an additional three innings following getting hit in the knee. It shouldn’t be too serious, but compensating leads to further injuries and imbalances…needless to say, it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

But that didn’t stop him from terrorizing baseballs.

Greg Gibson, tonight’s Fun Police and new public enemy #1, called two balks on Ohtani – leading to two runs scored. Neither of them were. Neither were close. Both were infuriating. See for yourself:

But, no matter. Ohtani helped his own cause with 8 strikeouts across five innings and still put himself in line for the win the entire game. Kurt Suzuki had a terrific game, going 3-3 with a HR and on-base five (!!) times. Justin Upton notched several knocks and made a terrific read and slide on a wild pitch in the seventh inning to break a 4-4 tie, and everything was peachy keen.

It looked great until the 9th (though perhaps a little too close for comfort) when down to the final strike, Eduardo Escobar tied up the game with a HR off Raisel Iglesias. Iglesias looked dominant but made a fatal mistake, leaving a fastball out over the plate and Escobar didn’t miss it.

Fast forward to the 10th, and the Diamondbacks pulled their pitcher Ryan Buchter before he had faced three batters — this is highly illegal! After Joe Maddon pointed it out, Buchter had to come back in to face the next batter.

With the bases loaded in the tenth inning, Max ‘Good Stats’ Stassi hit a soft grounder out of the pitcher’s reach, and the Angels took a 6-5 lead in the tenth inning. Steve Cishek and Alex Claudio tag-teamed the bottom half, and the Angels (31-32) refused to be felled by Greg Gibson in one of the weirdest games of the season so far. But hey, each win counts the same. Celebrate the win!