Shohei Ohtani pitched 7 innings of only 2 hit and 1 walk baseball. Ohtani struck out a career high 13 and generated 14 swings and misses. His ERA is down to 2.90 on the season.
Both of the hits that Ohtani gave up occurred on the first two hitters he faced. Ohtani struck out 2 in the first inning to get out of the two on, no out jam. Ohtani then K’d the side in the second, faced the minimum in the third, and struck out the side again in the fourth. Shohei struck out 1 in the fifth, he allowed a walk in the sixth but still faced the minimum in the inning by generating a double play ball. He then struck out 2 in the seventh, and another in the eighth to end his fantastic outing.
Ohtani struck out 5 hitters on his slider, which also had 1/2 of his swings and misses. Ohtani’s slider is elite to say the least, there is a reason that he throws it 33.3% of the time. His slider has 129% more horizontal break than the average slider, it also has a -2.4 RV/100, .172 xBAA, and a 45.1% whiff rate. When he throws his slider in a two strike count it has an xBAA of .137
On top of throwing 8 innings of shutout baseball, Ohtani also went 1-3 with 2 walks in this game.