 |
| baseball is pretty fun these days! |
Well, he got us: Shohei Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with a double, allowed two runs on just three hits in six innings pitched, and although he was later struck out by league-leading name-haver Kirby Snead, the night was very much Shohei's. It is strange that there were stories that framed this series as a "showdown" between the two contenders for AL MVP -- I totally get that people whose terrible job it is to file stories about baseball every day have to come up with some kind of hook, and I sympathize, but also come on: it has been clear as can be for several months now that, barring an injury that keeps him out for pretty much the rest of the season, there is no case to be made against Shohei Ohtani for MVP. If I think about all of the AL MVP's from my lifetime -- and I will remind you that I am very old -- there isn't a single one I could vote for (were I so asked) ahead of 2021 Shohei Ohtani (over in the NL, I grant that there are some Barry Bonds years you'd sure have to think about). That Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been the next best guy is fairly clear (although bWAR still has Semien ahead of him for the year!), but there's just an enormous gulf that separates what Vladdy is doing (having a truly great year at the plate as a charismatic twenty-two year old who seems like he could not be more ready to be one of the real stars of baseball for a good long time) from what Shohei Ohtani is doing (all the first-time-in-a-century stuff to which we are becoming accustomed, all of a sudden). I say this, of course, as a clear Guerrero partisan, and this is a partisanship that of course extends back in time to encompass his father, a player I found so wonderful to watch that it always made me a little sad to behold him (try and figure that one out without recourse to the lyrical Romantics! go ahead, try!). But it's Ohtani. It's for sure Ohtani.
A shame Jorge Berrios had a bit of a rough start but the split in Anaheim will do just fine, really, as most of the teams we needed to lose lost last night. There was a brief window between the moment Tim Anderson walked the Yankees off and the final out against the Angels wherein the Blue Jays had moved into third place in the AL east, .001 ahead of New York in the standings. It was real; I saw it.
On to Seattle! The Mariners are our expansion cousins! And I have always thought them neat, in no small part, I guess, because of how Ken Griffey Jr. started playing there when I was ten (he stood out).
KS
No comments:
Post a Comment