Have you heard about this Shohei Ohtani guy? Seems like he’s pretty good at baseball.
Shohei Ohtani is the first player in #Angels history with 40+ home runs and 20+ stolen bases in a season.
He's the first American League player to reach both of those totals in a season since Curtis Granderson (NYY) in 2011.
— Matt Birch (@MattBirch12) August 29, 2021
So that’s an offensive player first in team history, and the first time an AL players has done it in a decade. And also he’s got a 3.00 ERA with a 29.9 K% in 105 IP. What is there to even say about that? Do I really even need more things in this article? Well too bad because I did.
Ridiculous Lessons
Apparently, J. Walter Weatherman snuck into Progressive Field and stepped up to the plate pretending to be Jarren Duran
doink! pic.twitter.com/o3n4jztWXH
— Cut4 (@Cut4) August 28, 2021
And that’s why you always wear a helmet! I feel like I’ve seen more than one clip like this from little league and maybe high school baseball but I can’t recall another time seeing it in the big leagues. Austin Hedges’ complete disbelief at what he just did definitely helps sell the whole thing too. The ball came out of his hand, hit Duran’s helmet, and he just watches it hit the ground and you can practically see him figure out why that is in real-time.
Houser Efficiency
Below is an entire half-inning from the Brewers/Twins game last night, at normal speed, in under two minutes:
https://gfycat.com/thisremorsefuleuropeanfiresalamander
Adrian Houser entered the bottom of the fifth inning with 80 pitches and ended it with 83. With the new intentional walk rule, you could theoretically get through an inning with one pitch (or even zero if things got really weird) but I would say that the three-pitch inning is still pretty cool and impressive. I know we have the Immaculate Inning but is there a fun nickname for this sort of thing?
Also, I could practically hear Rob Manfred’s excitement about this from my desk, talk about pace of play…
Mateolé!
I guess Jorge Mateo has been studying his El Mago tape, because he channeled some of Javier Báez’ best tag-avoidance work yesterday:
jorge mateo said "not today" pic.twitter.com/tcTr5rcEXx
— Cut4 (@Cut4) August 29, 2021
You very seldom see a guy stealing second make the fielder look as off-balance as Wander Franco ends up here. Bonus fun fact: since going to Baltimore from San Diego this year, Mateo is hitting .356/.387/.492 and three stolen bases in 17 games.
Friendly Fire
Just like Duran showed us the importance of a helmet in the lead item this week, Elias Díaz is here to demonstrate another good fundie: why you want to take your third base lead in foul territory.
https://gfycat.com/sentimentaldirectfairybluebird
Díaz helpfully coached Taylor Motter on where the proper place to hit the ball as he deftly avoided the one in question.
https://gfycat.com/yearlywholeiberianlynx
Unfortunately for the Rockies, Motter didn’t heed the advice and ended up striking out to end the at-bat and inning but that’s baseball.
Can I Kick It?
One of the simplest pleasures in baseball is a runner losing their helmet. Eduardo Núñez practically turned it into both an art form and calling card, but guys like Willians Astudillo put on a good show as well. We can add Brandon Marsh to the list now, with a bonus overhead kick:
https://gfycat.com/unsungmajorgaur
I will say, part of me thinks that if he really had the presence of mind, Marsh could have actually caught the helmet as he stopped at second which should really just automatically count as a dinger if he had pulled that off. Just like Willians, Marsh pairs the helmet drop with an impressive flow, which is really just a nice bonus to the whole thing.
https://gfycat.com/fluffyflashychimneyswift
I don’t have any good, specific inspirational vibes to send everybody off into Sunday with this week, but ending with some talk about Willians Astudillo, even if just tangentially, seems like it’s 90% of the way there, honestly.
Featured image by Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)