Angels’ Shohei Ohtani has easy first outing with pitch clock
Shohei Ohtani knew coming into spring coaching that one in every of his greatest challenges can be the pitch clock.
The Angels’ two-way star made his first look as a pitcher in a spring sport Tuesday. He threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings in opposition to the Oakland Athletics, hanging out two and strolling two, and not using a clock violation in his 34 pitches.
Ohtani began working with the PitchCom system this spring as a way to name his personal video games. That saves time on the quantity of alerts he provides a catcher to get to the pitch he needs to throw.
Whether he might pitch throughout the allotted time restrict — 15 seconds between pitches with the bases empty, 20 seconds with runners on base and 30 seconds between batters — was not a giant concern for anybody across the crew.
What supervisor Phil Nevin did think about was how the time restrict would have an effect on the intimidation issue Ohtani has on opposing batters.
“When you’re standing in the box and Nolan Ryan’s pacing around the mound,” Nevin mentioned, “You’re like, ‘Oh, hell, what’s he going to do next to me,’ right? I think Shohei has that presence about him.
“The quicker those guys work and the more a hitter can be in the box and not uncomfortable, that may change a few things because he has that intimidating look to him and the way he kind of moves around the mound. He still has that, that’s not gonna take that away, but it will change a little bit and how he goes about it.”
Ohtani, after his first sport expertise with the clock, acknowledged that all-around he’s going to proceed making an attempt to regulate to it.
“I couldn’t really tell if I was intimidating the batters or not, so that’s not really an issue,” Ohtani mentioned by interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. “As far as the pitch clock, it’s the same for everyone. Everyone needs to get adjusted.
“So far, so good, but I feel like I’m being a little bit rushed. As long as I keep getting games under my belt, I should be good.”