Shohei Ohtani on Friday hit his major league-leading 44th home run, but was tagged early by Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and the Houston Astros in a 10-5 win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani (9-2) had been 8-0 in his last 13 starts since May 28, and gave himself a lead when he hit a solo homer in the first inning.
The two-way sensation yielded six runs on a career-high nine hits in 3-1/3 innings.
Photo: AP
“I feel like they were sitting on my cutters and sliders for the most part,” Ohtani said through a translator. “Before I could make adjustments, I had runners on base all the time, and I couldn’t really try out new things.”
Altuve and Bregman were a combined 5 for 5 against Ohtani.
“That’s not a guy you would like to face all the time,” Houston manager Dusty Baker said of Ohtani. “We were putting some good at-bats together, hit some balls hard early. It was good to get him out of the game pitching and get him out and his bat, which is as potent as his pitching is.”
Ohtani became the first American League pitcher to be intentionally walked in more than 51 years when Framber Valdez intentionally walked him to load the bases with two outs in the fourth.
The last American League pitcher to be intentionally walked was Jim Kaat of the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 1, 1970. After the walk to Ohtani, Valdez struck out Phil Gosselin to end the threat.
In Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Pirates slipped past the Washington National 4-3 to spoil Josh Bell’s return to PNC Park.
Ke’Bryan Hayes completed a two-run comeback by sending a pitch from Washington reliever Alberto Baldonado to right field, scoring Ben Gamel from third for the first walk-off hit of his career.
“I knew a single was going to win the game so I just tried to hit it low and hard,” said Hayes, a rookie third baseman who is a key part of rebuilding the Pirates.
Bell, a former second-round pick who played five seasons in Pittsburgh before being traded to Washington in December last year, hit his 26th home run of the season for the Nationals. His solo shot in the sixth gave the Nationals a two-run lead the overtaxed bullpen could not quite hold.
The Pirates and National were yesterday to meet again, when families of Flight 93 passengers would be recognized on the field with military and first responders on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The New York Yankees and New York Mets were also to pay tribute to first responders during a subway series this weekend.
Retired Mets infielder Todd Zeile on Friday talked about playing in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 21, 2001.
“We put a small Band-Aid on a big wound for a couple of hours,” he said. “To put the smiles on the faces of the people who were hurting and just make them relax for a couple hours and watch the national pastime come back, play ball, that made me feel that it was the right time to do it.”
Bobby Valentine, manager of the 2001 Mets, was to throw a ceremonial first pitch to Joe Torre, manager of the 2001 Yankees.
“We all had fear. We had fears in our hearts that one: Maybe we’d be attacked, and two: maybe we were doing the wrong thing,” Valentine said. “There was so much uncertainty and doubt.”
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