Padres ace strikes out Shohei Ohtani with impressive splitter – Source: Imagn
After Shohei Ohtani took Dylan Cease deep in Game 1, he was matched up against fellow countryman Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres in Game 2 of the ongoing NLDS series at Dodger Stadium on Sunday. Only this time, arguably the best hitter in baseball was made foolish by Darvish as the Japanese ace struck him out in his first plate appearance.
The first plate appearance between Ohtani and Darvish started with Darvish throwing two balls outside the strike zone before coming back with back-to-back strikes. Finally, his 90 mph splitter was good enough to fool Ohtani into chasing the down-and-away ball.
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Netizens praised Yu Darvish for being able to get the better of Shohei Ohtani, who is coming off a historic season.
“Yu Darvish just made the best player ever look DUMB on one of the best pitch sequences I’ve ever seen,” one fan commented.Expand Tweet”Darvish owns him,” another wrote.
Darvish was previously part of the Dodgers roster that went to the World Series in 2017 but lost to the Houston Astros. However, the pitcher has struggled to rediscover his top form in the regular season ever since. One fan referenced that while saying:
“Yu Darvish failed the Dodgers in 2017 and has owned us ever since. I hate him.””Where was that pitch in 2017? Say, around late October…” another had a similar sentiment.”Yu Darvish is just one of those guys that has quietly been a top 15ish pitcher or better his whole career,” another added.
Another fan wondered what Dodgers 1B Freddie Freeman was feeling after seeing what Darvish did to Ohtani.
“Freeman walking back to the dugout”
“My main focus is to get all of them out, not just Shohei” – Yu Darvish has whole of Dodgers in his crosshairs
The pressure was on Yu Darvish ahead of Game 2 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. His team lost Game 1 behind a comeback victory from the Dodgers, which saw Shohei Ohtani slamming a three-run home run and Teoscar Hernandez driving in two runs on a single.
When asked about who the Japanese pitcher was most concerned about, the Padres pitcher had a simple response:
“No, it’s not something just specifically talking about facing Shohei. I’m facing all nine Dodgers hitters. My main focus is to get all of them out, not just Shohei. Going into the game, I just want to keep the focus, keep the concentration at a high level and execute my pitches,” Darvish said per Marca.
At the moment, it seems like, Darvish is living up to the expectations against the same lineup that scored seven runs the other day. At the time of writing, Darvish has pitched five innings, giving up only one run and striking out three. Padres lead Dodgers 4-1 with the top of the sixth inning going on.