Shohei Ohtani provides late boost as Angels improve to 4-1

The Angels' Shohei Ohtani scores, sliding past Houston Astros catcher Martin Maldonado.

Staff Writer

Published April 5, 2021 Updated April 6, 2021 2:44 AM PT

It began with a stare and ended with a slide.

What was supposed to be Shohei Ohtani’s first day off of the 2021 season instead gave way to his — and his team’s — latest dramatic moment, with the two-way star getting hit by a pitch and later scoring the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of the Angels’ 7-6 victory over the Houston Astros on Monday night.

After Ohtani’s first two-way major league game Sunday night — in which he hit a home run, pitched 4 2/3 innings and was involved in a scary-looking home plate collision at the end — manager Joe Maddon wanted to give his star a rest. Ohtani, however, told Maddon that he felt fine and was up for playing in Monday’s series opener against the Astros.

The two “negotiated,” Maddon said, chuckling, and decided Ohtani wouldn’t be the designated hitter, but would be available off the bench as a pinch hitter.

In the eighth inning, Ohtani’s moment came.

Once down 4-0 and having entered the bottom of the eighth trailing 5-3, the Angels were threatening after back-to-back singles from Albert Pujols and José Iglesias to lead off the inning. Ohtani came up next, waiting in the batter’s box as the Astros had a mound meeting with reliever Joe Smith.

On the second pitch of the at-bat, Smith plunked Ohtani with a slider in the thigh. Ohtani was OK and the hit-by-pitch didn’t seem intentional, but Ohtani glared at Smith anyway, staring icily at the right-hander as he dropped his bat and walked to first base.

“Ohtani’s hot at the plate right now,” Mike Trout said. “I think he [just] wanted to hit.”

Instead, the inning continued. Dexter Fowler hit an RBI single. David Fletcher drove in the tying run with a grounder to second. And Jared Walsh came to the plate with a chance to give the Angels the lead. Ohtani stood at third base, representing the go-ahead run.

Walsh hit a hard ground ball to first base, where the Astros’ Yuli Gurriel made a diving stop before firing a throw home. With a feet-first slide — at the same spot where he had fallen awkwardly the night before — Ohtani scored as catcher Martín Maldonado missed the catch while going for the tag.

Ohtani stood up, confirmed with the umpire that he was safe and then trotted back to the dugout, a sea of smiling faces awaiting him on a night the Angels improved to 4-1 for the first time since 2007.

“We kept coming back,” Maddon said postgame. “You can credit up and down the lineup today. So many good things happened with different people.”

Indeed, the Angels’ opening-week success has followed a certain theme, one that includes more than just key contributions from Ohtani.

They’re stringing together good at-bats. They’re getting solid outings from their bullpen. When they do fall behind, they keep themselves close with good defense. And when they need to mount a rally, they do so in the most methodical of ways.

Monday’s eighth inning was the latest example: nine plate appearances, three singles, two run-scoring ground balls, one run-scoring sacrifice fly (by Anthony Rendon, two at-bats after Ohtani scored) and zero strikeouts.

“I want us to maintain this. I want it to become part of the organizational fabric as we move forward,” Maddon said. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and it plays every day.”

In all four Angels victories, the eventual winning run was scored in the final two innings.

Monday’s four-run eighth inning gave the Angels a two-run lead, providing reliever Mike Mayers margin for error in the ninth — closer Raisel Iglesias was unavailable after pitching the previous day — when he gave up a home run but still secured the save.

“Everybody’s got a piece of ownership right now — that’s what you’re seeing,” Maddon said.

Echoed Trout: “It’s going to take all of us. Tonight you saw that.”

It was Trout who kick-started Monday’s comeback. Through three and a half innings, the Angels were trailing by four and being denied any hits by Astros starter Luis Garcia. Then three-time MVP Trout led off the bottom of the fourth with a moonshot to left for his first home run of the season. Through five games, he has a 1.275 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

“It’s getting close,” Trout said of his swing, which he had tinkered with during the spring. “I felt really good at the plate tonight.”

The rest of the Angels offense kept the line moving, too. They tallied a second run later in the fourth with three singles. They scored again in the fifth inning on two hits and a walk.

But they hadn’t come all the way back, twice stranding the tying run in scoring position. Then in the sixth, the Astros (4-1) extended their lead again to two when Maldonado was ruled safe on a play at the plate that went to video review.

The Angels continued to hang around, though, thanks in large part to their bullpen, which used five pitchers to combine for 5 2/3 innings. After starter José Quintana gave up four runs in his first outing with the team, rookie right-hander Chris Rodriguez contributed 2 2/3 innings in relief, giving up the Maldonado run but also striking out three. Veterans Alex Claudio, Steve Cishek and Tony Watson pieced together two scoreless frames after that.

It left the Angels well within striking distance when they came to bat in the eighth, setting the stage for the team’s third comeback win in the season’s first five games.

“When you’ve done it — and we’ve done it often already — that absolutely creates that believability we can do it again,” Maddon said. “There’s a confidence factor. There’s a knowing.”

And it seemingly extends to every member of the team — even the one who was supposed to have Monday night off.