Ohtani BM860804

The Angles and Rangers continued a three-game series with the Angles looking for the sweep on April 11, 2019. Angels breakout rookie Shohei Ohtani was batting eighth in the designated hitter's spot in this game with left-hander Matt Moore pitching for the Rangers. This baseball was used in Sho Time’s first at-bat. The first pitch was an 89.1 MPH fastball that was just off the plate for a ball. Moore came back again with another fastball, and this time Ohtani hit a groundball to left field for a single, the 8th hit of his career. Kole Calhoun was on second base for the Angels, and he raced home for the first run of the game, Ohtani’s 8th career RBI. Ohtani would make it to second base in this inning on a Rene Rivera single that drove in another run to give the Angels a 2-0 lead. Later in the game in the eighth inning, Shohei Ohtani again reached base, this time on a walk. His teammate from 2017 in Japan, Chris Martin was brought in to pitch to the next batter and got Rene Rivera to lien out. During the next at-bat with Zach Cozart at the plate, Ohtani was trying to be aggressive on the bases and was picked off. But the Angles challenged the call which was overturned. After throwing a strike to Cozart, Martin again tried to pick off Ohtani at first, and the second time the throw was in time for the second out of the inning. The Angels led the game from the first run on, to win this game 7-2 and improve to 10-3. Combined with a Houston loss on this day, the Angels are in first place in their division.