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Wednesday saw the return of Shohei Ohtani to the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in typical Shohei style, he picked up where he left off last season (aside from that Game 7 clunker).
Against the San Francisco Giants, Ohtani went 4 2/3 innings, allowing only one hit along with two walks and a hit batter.
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Manager Dave Roberts was quite effusive in his remarks about Ohtani after the game.
“I was (surprised at how sharp he was). But I guess I’ve learned that you don’t ever underestimate or try to make predictions on what Shohei’s going to do. He’s always going to deliver. Yeah, I thought he would be a little bit more rusty than he was today. The breaking ball was good, got some swing and miss. The fastball command, he was working ahead in the count today. So across the board, really good.”
“It actually didn’t feel like it was my first spring training outing,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “I do see this as more of an extension of a live BP situation. So it didn’t feel too bad going into this game.”
Bill Plunkett of the OC Register has many more quotes about Ohtani’s performance today, and how he felt over this offseason as opposed to last offseason. Spoiler alert – he felt great. Coming off your second World Series win in as many years and finally being healthy can have that effect on a man.
Jack Harris of the California Post shared a little bit more behind the scenes of the Dodgers pursuit of free agent Kyle Tucker. For as good as Tucker is, and for highly sought after he was in the offseason, the Dodgers wanted to know if he was ready to level up to compete on all cylinders.
“We feel like, with where he’s at, getting a complete season out of him on both sides of the ball is very attainable,” Friedman said. “And we feel like, in our environment, we can help bring that out of him even more.”
So far this spring, Tucker is batting .250 with two homers and three RBI. While Spring Training stats aren’t always indicative of what that player will be like in the season, it seems that Tucker has a little more work to do to achieve his best season yet.
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Miguel Rojas spent six frantic minutes on Monday dealing with the fallout of an erroneous tweet sent out by Evan Drellich of The Athletic. The tweet stated that Miggy Ro had been suspended for 80 games for testing positive for use of a banned substance. It was in fact Johan Rojas of the Philadelphia Phillies who had tested positive for Boldenone, not the World Series hero.
Maddie Lee at the Los Angeles Times covered the fallout, and how Drellich finally issued a more formal apology on Wednesday to Miguel and the Dodgers organization. Seven minutes was seven minutes too long, as I’m sure Toronto Blue Jays and other baseball fans would’ve had some choice things to say about that infamous homer that would’ve marred that moment forever.
“I’m not frustrated because of the report, because we are all humans and we make mistakes,” Rojas said Wednesday morning in front of his locker at Camelback Ranch. “I was expecting a little bit more of an apology, not just to me, but the organization. Because it wasn’t just my name, it was pretty clear that it says, ‘Miguel Rojas from the Los Angeles Dodgers.’ And I don’t think anybody in this organization should be kind of freaking out and jumping out of their seats for the six or seven minutes that it happened.”
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Thursday 6-9am: Chris Dobbertean and Mike Rutherford
