There’s no worse feeling for a pitcher than making a perfect pitch and still giving up a hit. Astros starter Hunter Brown knows all about that.
In the third inning of Monday night’s game against the Angels, Brown had a 1–2 count on Shohei Ohtani and threw him an excellent backdoor curveball that barely caught the outside part of the strike zone. Ohtani, protecting the plate with two strikes, offered at the tough pitch.
He stuck his butt way out and extended his arms as far as they would go to reach the outside pitch. Baseball fans have seen swings like that plenty of times. Almost always, they result in weak contact. Any other hitter would have grounded into an inning-ending double play.
But not Ohtani, who sent the ball back up the middle and used his speed to reach second base for one of the most impressive doubles you’ll ever see.
How do you get a double on this pitch? 😮
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 9, 2023
And, EV of over 100mph. pic.twitter.com/bMP33ROyNa
Ohtani didn’t get lucky on some cheap contact, either. The ball left the bat at an impressive 100.3 mph, 8.6 mph higher than his average exit velocity this season.
The one thing I can’t make sense of is the Astros’ defensive alignment on the play. The reason Ohtani ended up with a double instead of a single is that center fielder Chas McCormick was shifted toward left while right fielder Kyle Tucker remained in a more typical straightaway position, creating a big hole in right-center. While Ohtani does hit more balls to the outfield the other way, I don’t understand why the entire outfield wasn’t shaded that way. Whatever. It just made Ohtani’s hit that much cooler.
