Los Angeles Angels: Shohei Ohtani is proving us wrong

Shohei Ohtani has been back in action for the Los Angeles Angels for a little bit over six weeks and has proven us wrong thus far with his performance.

The Los Angeles Angels took a massive loss at the end of last season when it was announced that Shohei Ohtani would have Tommy John Surgery on his pitching elbow. As a result, the Angels would be without Ohtani on the mound until the 2020 season.

However, Ohtani is a baseball unicorn as he is the first two-way player since Babe Ruth and can more than contribute offensively. Ohtani proved that the offensive jump to the Major Leagues was not too drastic in his rookie campaign, giving the Angels plenty of confidence of having him be a DH in 2019.

But still, bringing him back had its risks. While swinging a bat won’t spark anything new with Tommy John, there was the risk of him getting a fluke injury of sorts and re-hurting the elbow. Sure, he is wearing a Robocop-like elbow guard, but baseball is a fluky game.

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There was also the worry that Ohtani wouldn’t be his full self at the plate because of the elbow. There is still discomfort there and even the smallest discomfort can have a massive impact in a game like baseball, where hits and outs are decided by the millisecond.

Because of that, we pondered the question of whether or not it was even worth it to bring Ohtani back. If he alone could have a positive-enough impact on the team to warrant his return. Not only that, we doubled down on this when he was hit by a pitch in his hand.

It was not a serious injury, but it was an injury scare and seemingly proved our point correct that the risk did not outweigh the reward.

And to make a long story short, so far, we are wrong. Ohtani has absolutely proven us wrong thus far and if he continues to produce at his current level then we will be wrong for the rest of the season.

Ohtani is hitting .278 with eight homers and 27 RBIs in 151 plate appearances this season. His .840 OPS is the third-best on the team for anyone with as many plate appearances as him and over the last 14 days, he is hitting .386 with five homers and a 1.267 OPS.

In terms of OPS, Ohtani has been the sixth-best hitter in the Major Leagues the last two weeks and only two players, Max Kepler and Christian Yelich, have as many plate appearances with a better OPS than Ohtani.

This does not mean that he is going to be this spectacular of a hitter all season long but these hot stretches prove that he can have a massive impact on the Los Angeles Angels, something we completely whiffed on in our take.

The Los Angeles Angels still have some work to do as they continue to hover around .500 without getting over the proverbial hump. The team is 19-15 in games that Ohtani appears in, which is promising but could still use some work.

Ten of the Angels’ 13 remaining games in June are against teams that are .500 or worse (Toronto, Cincinnati and Oakland). The Athletics are dead-even at .500 but very well could be under the threshold once their series starts on June 28.

The Angels are 16-12 against teams under .500 and if Ohtani can keep his pace for the remainder of the month, the Angels very well could win seven or eight of those 10 games.

That hopefully can get the team some momentum heading into the final seven games of the first half against the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. If Ohtani continues to slug, it is not crazy to think that the Halos could be in a wild-card spot by the Midsummer Classic.

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Even if they are not, it is impossible to deny the kind of impact that Shohei Ohtani has had on the Los Angeles Angels thus far. Hopefully, he can continue that impact and stay healthy at the same time.

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