Ohtani fires fastballs of up to 100 mph

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani, who declared his bid to challenge in both pitching and batting, fired fastballs of up to 100 miles per hour about a month ahead of the opening of this year’s Major League baseball.

Ohtani performed live pitching at the Dodgers’ spring Camp at the Tempe Diablo Stadium in Arizona, U.S. on Sunday. Live pitching refers to pitching exercise under the hypothetical condition that a batter is standing at the batter’s box. Ohtani threw a total of 35 pitches for five batters on the day. Nikkan Sports in Japan said that Ohtani did not allow even a single hit-like batted ball.

Ohtani would double as batter and pitcher when he was playing for the Nihon Ham in the Japanese pro baseball. As a batter, he had a batting average of 0.285, 22 homers and 61 runs when he debuted in the Major League Baseball in 2018. He also took the mound in 10 games, and had four wins and two losses, and an earned run average of 3.31 to win the rookie player of the year award in the American League. He underwent an elbow surgery in October that year, and never took the mound in 2019.

The 26-year-old star player participated in two games as pitcher early days of the season last year, but only took the batter’s box due to recurrence of pain in his elbow. Ohtani threw pitches with a top speed of 97 miles per hour at official games last year, but his pitches are already over 100 miles per hour before the opening of the season.


Kyu-In Hwang kini@donga.com