ANAHEIM, Calif. — On what was in many ways a difficult afternoon, Shohei Ohtani still came strikingly close to accomplishing something unprecedented.
He missed by only a few feet. Ohtani came to bat in Thursday's eighth inning with a chance to become the first player in baseball history to hit for the cycle while also serving as that game's starting pitcher.
He then drove the first pitch he saw into deep center field, bringing a sparse Angel Stadium crowd to its feet — but Oakland Athletics center fielder Esteury Ruiz caught it right before crashing into the fence.
It was a 389-foot out. «It was off the end,» Ohtani said through an interpreter, «so I knew it wasn't gone off the bat.» But Ohtani was noticeably frustrated as he returned to the dugout in the late stages of the Los Angeles Angels' eventual 8-7 victory.