Shohei Ohtani crushes the Nationals 2-0, bullpen maintains the one-hitter

So it turns out, there’s this thing called “starters going deep” that prevents late game collapses.

On a nice Tuesday evening in Anaheim, Ohtani cruised through a lackluster Nationals lineup that, just the night before, overcame a 4-1 deficit to show up the Angels pitchers. Ohtani That’s not to say the phenom looked spectacular, but his 5 walks were almost all the Washington hitters could muster. When you don’t know where the ball is going, neither do they. It’s an effective strategy.

The Angels hitters, on the other hand, managed to fill up the basepaths multiple times, but were ultimately able to only scratch across a sacrifice fly from Anthony Rendon and Logan O’Hoppe’s fourth bomb of the season. That insurance run probably never would have even felt necessary with the way the Nationals bats were swinging, but with the ephemeral nature of an Angels lead, we probably could have used a few more.

Tally one for the Halos and another merit on Ohtani’s record. Canning faces off tomorrow against Gore in a day game before an offday. With a win, the Angels could salvage a split at home.