"Why Would You Pitch To Him? He's The Only Fucking Guy On The Team Who Can Hit" - Matt Chapman To Blue Jays Manager John Schneider After Another Shohei Ohtani Homer
Disclaimer: This is not a blog about Nicky Smokes so I'll accept any and all applause first and foremost.
Shohei Ohtani is in one those zones as an athlete where it looks like he should be in a more advanced league. Over his last 13 games he's blasted 7 homers while posting an OPS of 1.356, and not to mention he threw a complete game shutout yesterday. Just a silly man who is better at the sport than everyone else.
That begs the question why pitch to him? You saw Aaron Judge get a ton of free passes in the second half last year as he was chasing Maris. He was given the Bonds treatment and was taken out of the equation as much as humanly possible because it wasn't worth finding out what would happen if you threw strikes to the behemoth. While it's terrible for viewership, these teams are trying to win baseball games. Aaron Boone was asked about this exact concept a few weeks ago and responded that Ohtani isn't homering 90% of the time so that fear isn't in his mind. I hate every bit of that rationale. For the Angels, right behind Ohtani bats Mickey Moniak. The former number one overall pick is having himself a very nice breakout year, but he's no Shohei. Take your chances with anyone else and live with it.
Well, in the first inning of tonight's game Jays ace Kevin Gausman decided to challenge the runaway MVP. He suffered the consequences of such a grave error.
After the half inning, 3rd baseman Matt Chapman went up to Jays manager John Schneider and tried to figure out what the fuck he was thinking.
In an ideal situation you don't want to do this where the cameras can see you. That being said as a 3rd party fan this is awesome to see. Watching players frustrated the same way fans are with a manger's decision is great. He couldn't comprehend the decision. As if Schneider hadn't seen any of the Tungsten O'doyle tweets when Ohtani does shit that's never happened before. Yes, Kevin Gausman is having a very good year, but he's completely susceptible to making a mistake over the plate. Ohtani is not ignoring any mistakes at the moment. Must be sick to be Shohei and get to see these kind of frustration clips out there because you are that good at what you do. Also must be sick because he's going to make a billion dollars this offseason.
Chapman took matters into his own hands fairly quickly afterwards and evened the game at one.
Some fun intensity in this one with two teams fighting every tooth and nail for a wild card spot. We have officially entered the playoff push.