Latest fear Shohei Ohtani is triggering for opponents: Blasting first pitches

Yahoo

a day ago

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Guardians welcomed the Los Angeles Dodgers for three games at Progressive Field, a midweek clash between two franchises that have achieved success via drastically different means over the past decade. The series offered a contrast between the star-powered juggernaut Dodgers and a Guardians team that has become remarkably good at following less predictable paths to victory.
Los Angeles arrived in northeast Ohio after dropping a series in New York to a fellow financial behemoth in the Mets, but quickly recaptured momentum with a couple of commanding victories over Cleveland on Monday (7-2) and Tuesday (9-5). The Guardians were coming off an impressive series victory over the divisional rival Tigers in Detroit, albeit one that concluded with a complete offensive outage against ace Tarik Skubal on Sunday.
Cleveland's series against L.A. was sequenced much differently, with a quiet first couple of games before exploding late in the series finale for a rousing 7-4 comeback victory to avoid the sweep.
Here are four major takeaways from this week's three-game set:
Ohtani homered in the first two games of the series, becoming the first MLB hitter to reach 20 home runs this season. Seeing Ohtani atop the dinger leaderboard is nothing new, but let's not gloss over his homer heroics too quickly — he has actually leveled up his power stroke relative to recent seasons.
Here's how many homers Ohtani had through his team's first 56 games since his first MVP year in 2021:
2021: 15
2022: 11
2023: 13
2024: 13
2025: 20
After hitting a career-high 54 home runs last year, Ohtani is currently on pace to approach 60 — all while working his way back toward his highly-anticipated return to pitching.
Both of Ohtani's home runs this week came on the first pitch of the at-bat. On Monday, Guardians starter Gavin Williams failed to execute the outside fastball catcher Bo Naylor set up for on the first offering of the game, letting the pitch float into what manager Dave Roberts described as Ohtani's 'nitro zone' and predictably paid the price. Ohtani torched the ball 115.5 mph to right field, clearing the wall in a blink. On Tuesday, after striking out looking against Tanner Bibee in his first at-bat and getting intentionally walked in his second plate appearance, Ohtani jumped on a first-pitch cutter in the fourth inning, sending a soaring fly ball to left that barely cleared the 19-foot wall for a two-run homer to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. It wasn't quite the screaming line drive no-doubter he hit Monday, but Ohtani's otherworldly strength enabled just enough distance for the ball to collect his 20th homer of the season.
"He basically mis-hits a fly ball … and it still goes out,' Max Muncy said in marvel afterward. 'He does stuff that no normal human being can do, and it's really fun to watch.'
While Ohtani's six first-pitch homers are tied with Seattle's Cal Raleigh for second-most in MLB behind only Aaron Judge (7), these early hacks are actually a departure from how he has treated first pitches this season. Ohtani has swung at just 28.7% of first pitches, a tick below the league-average mark of 30%. This is also a notable change from how aggressive Ohtani has been in recent years: He swung at 39.1% of first pitches in 2024, tied for 23rd-highest rate among 131 qualified batters and his first-pitch swing percentage has hovered around 40% in every season since 2021 until this year. Let's keep an eye on how this number trends over the course of the season; perhaps his first-pitch-swinging success in Cleveland portends more ambushing in the near future. Pitchers, beware.
Ramírez continues to cruise along as one of the sport's best all-around players, and is firmly on track for another strong finish in the AL MVP balloting, where he has placed in the top-6 six different times during his career. The switch-hitting Ramírez collected six more hits against the Dodgers, moving him into sole possession of seventh place on the franchise's all-time hits list with 1,564.
Three of Ramírez's hits against the Dodgers came against left-handers, a continuation of a spectacular run of excellence from that side for Ramírez dating back to last season when he hit a career-best .348/.385/.695 in 179 plate appearances batting righty. This year, Ramírez is hitting a ridiculous .426 batting right-handed in 54 plate appearances.
'Hosey is one of the best hitters in the world,' Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said about the face of the franchise. 'Righty Hosey is the best hitter in the world. So it's not surprising.'
No franchise has prioritized the acquisition and development of switch-hitters as much as Cleveland in recent years, with Ramírez the most prominent success story among many. The return of Carlos Santana to the organization gives the Guardians two of the most accomplished switch-hitters of this generation, both of whom hail from the Dominican Republic. It's no surprise then that 23-year-old Angel Martínez, another switch-hitting Dominican in the earliest stages of his career, has benefitted greatly from sharing a clubhouse with Ramírez and Santana.
'I feel it's a privilege to be able to see them on a daily basis,' said Martínez through interpreter Agustin Rivero after Wednesday's game in which he hit the go-ahead three-run home run off Dodgers lefty reliever Alex Vesia in the bottom of the eighth inning. It was Martínez's first home run batting right-handed in the big leagues. 'The right side is a little difficult for me because I don't see as many pitches as I would like to, so I always have to keep my swing a little bit simple and not look for power. I just try to put the ball in play, so [it was] very lucky that today we got the result we got.'
As Martínez continues to develop as a versatile piece within Cleveland's position player group, he's eager to keep learning from two of the best possible mentors that he gets to call teammates.
'Not only seeing how they play the game, but also how they prepare, how they go about their routines and most importantly that they allow me to be close to them and ask them questions,' Martínez said. 'At the same time, they motivate me. They help me when they see things during the game. That has helped me a lot, especially hitting from both sides.'
It feels strange to call the outstanding campaign currently in progress for the Dodgers backstop a 'breakout' considering what he has already accomplished in his career, but Smith's offensive production through the first two months should not go overlooked. For years, Smith's performance at the plate has impressed particularly in relation to his position, as it's rare for catchers to hit at an above-average level on a yearly basis due to the grueling physical demands of playing behind the plate in the big leagues. But right now, Smith's bat doesn't just stand out relative to his positional peers — he's been one of the best hitters in the league, full stop.
With a home run and two walks Monday plus two more hits Wednesday, Smith's wRC+ soared to a career-best 177, which ranks sixth in MLB and not far behind his MVP teammates Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.
'He's swinging the bat great,' Roberts said. 'He's all around playing good baseball. He controls the hitting zone. He's sound mechanically, and he's strong and fresh ... When he's not going well, the bat is a little slower and isn't able to pull the ball in the air. I think right now, he's hitting to all fields. And I just think he's physically in a good place.'
'Will is an incredible hitter,' Freeman added. 'He's been doing that for the last few years — it's been back-to-back All-Star [appearances]. Now it's more of, 'how can we keep him fresh?' Being a catcher in this game is hard, it really is. And it takes a toll on you later on in the season.'
It's not an accident that the Dodgers are stressing the importance of finding ways to keep Smith at his best over the course of 162 games and beyond. A frustrating theme in recent years has been Smith's production peaking in the early months but waning dramatically down the stretch and into October. In 2023, Smith had a .957 OPS through the end of May but a .729 OPS the rest of the way. Last season, Smith was terrific in April (.946 OPS) but faded again as the season progressed, with Smith notably struggling in October (.568 OPS) amid the team's World Series run.
The challenge this year is to avoid a similar trajectory. Early returns have been encouraging, but there's a lot of baseball ahead.
'He's hitting balls in the zone considerably better than he did in the second half of last year,' Roberts said. 'I know he's healthy. I think we're doing a good job of managing his workload.'
The recent decision to promote top prospect Dalton Rushing and release longtime catching cog Austin Barnes should help in the Smith conservation efforts. Rushing provides a much more potent offensive option than Barnes at the position 1-2 times a week while also getting vital reps as a defender that can help him develop into a more reliable regular option in the years ahead. Most teams can't afford to take a bat of Smith's caliber out of the lineup so frequently, but the Dodgers have plenty of other firepower to turn to on Smith's off days. That was on display in Tuesday's victory, as L.A. scored nine runs on 13 hits with Rushing in the lineup instead of Smith.
'Hopefully we can keep him a little bit more fresh because this is who Will Smith is,' Freeman said. 'He's a great hitter and obviously a great catcher. So if we can keep him fresh, we can keep this going all season.'
With left-hander Clayton Kershaw on the mound, lefty-swinging Guardians outfielder Nolan Jones wasn't expecting to get into the game until the later innings Wednesday. Jones, who has struggled immensely in his return to the organization that drafted him after being re-acquired from the Rockies in March, had received just 18 plate appearances against southpaws this season. With that lack of production in mind, Jones did not anticipate being called upon until a possible pinch-hit situation against a right-hander later in the game. But when All-Star left fielder Steven Kwan exited after three innings due to right wrist inflammation (Vogt said postgame the injury is not considered serious), Jones was pressed into action — and responded remarkably well.
Having entered Wednesday without a single hit against a lefty all season, Jones collected a hit against Kershaw in the fifth inning and then later added another knock against a formidable lefty in reliever Tanner Scott, a game-tying, two-run single to left field to sustain Cleveland's exciting five-run eighth inning to seize the lead.
'It kind of turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me today that I was not in the lineup and got thrown in there because I was prepared, but not as prepared as I would've been had my name been in the lineup,' Jones said, suggesting that the sudden nature of his entrance into the game simplified his approach into just competing rather than overloading on information and preparation. 'I felt like it just slowed things down for me a little bit.'
It's unlikely Jones' success Wednesday is going to immediately translate to more opportunities against lefties. But for a Guardians offense starving for more production from the non-Ramírez and Kwan hitters, Jones finding his footing and re-accessing the talent that made him one of baseball's best rookies in 2023 would be a massive development for Cleveland in its efforts to keep up in the AL Central race.
'I think the hardest thing is to believe you belong in the big leagues,' Jones said. 'And I've been really good in the big leagues, and so I'm able to put my trust in that and continue working. And these coaches have done a really great job of giving me the confidence that they believe in me and working with me through the really, really tough start that I've had. And I think that goes a long way.'