Shohei Ohtani strikes out eight, drives in a run as Mariners fall 4-3 to Angels
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - APRIL 05: Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Angels pitches during the first inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on April 05, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
SEATTLE - Shoehi Ohtani allowed just one run on three hits over six innings for the Los Angeles Angels and reached base three times with an RBI offensively as the Seattle Mariners fell 4-3 on Wednesday afternoon.
Ohtani had four walks, but struck out eight for the Angels in shutting down the Mariners offense. Ohtani also delivered an RBI single in the seventh inning that drove in the decisive run in the contest.
"He's a great pitcher. We had a good approach and everyone had productive, good (at-bats) today and just fell short of the stick," shortstop J.P. Crawford said.
Chris Flexen had a strong outing for the Mariners on the mound as well. Flexen – pitching in place of an injured Robbie Ray in the starting rotation – allowed just two runs on two hits with two walks and four strikeouts over five innings. Ray was placed on the 15-day injured list after his initial start of the season and Flexen jumped back into the rotation to fill the vacancy.
"He was ready to go and credit to him," manager Scott Servais said of Flexen. "He was in the right mindset because oftentimes it's not physical. It becomes mental. He wants the ball. He wants to step in there and compete and that's what he did today. I thought his stuff was really good."
Ultimately, the Angels squeaked out a pair of late runs off the Seattle bullpen on soft contact hits from Mike Trout and Ohtani that proved to be just enough. Trout's infield chopper to shortstop allowed Gio Urshela to score and Ohtani's grounder off the end of the bat found space between Eugenio Suárez and the third baseline to score Taylor Ward and give the Angels a 4-1 lead.
Bring (Andrés Muñoz) in in a tough situation and he executes some pitches and ties up Trout, infield single, and then Ohtani hits one off the end of the bat. You know, it does happen you can't control that stuff," Servais said.
The Mariners got a pair of runs back in the bottom of the seventh inning but Suárez ran into a rundown between first and second base that ended the inning. It was the second base running mistake of the day for the Mariners as Ty France was thrown out at home with no outs in the first inning trying to score on an errant throw.
"Keep that pitcher out, keep the pressure on him. I'm a big fan of that," Servais said. "We talk about it a lot. Never want to make that final out on the bases when you're keeping the pressure on the other club and we made a mistake. You know, Gino came around the base too far. Credit to them. They cut the ball and made a play. It took us out of a big time rally and we are momentum driven team and you could feel the momentum of the game starting to switch right there. But they made the play."
Julio Rodríguez drew a lead-off walk off Ohtani and came around to score on a single to right field from Suárez for a 1-0 Seattle lead. France tried to advance to third and forced an errant throw from right fielder Hunter Renfroe. However, the ball bounced off the wall back to Urshela at third and he was able to throw home to get France for the first out. The inning fizzled from there as Cal Raleigh and Teoscar Hernández each struck out to end the early threat.
Logan O'Hoppe then hammered a low cutter from Flexen off the manual scoreboard over the left field fence for a two-run homer to give the Angels the lead in the second inning. But Flexen was superb the rest of the way. He retired each of the final 10 batters he faced after the O'Hoppe blast and struck out Ward in the fifth inning to end his outing.
"It was big. It kept us in the ballgame there," Flexen said. "That's what the goal was, you know, always trying to win the game and it's something where I fell behind in that count, hung one and it's how you come back from that. It could have spiraled and been worse but tried to continue to attack and keep us right there."
Ohtani retired nine of his final 10 batters and struck out the side in the sixth inning before leaving the mound for the day.
"I noticed second, third time around through he started implementing a cutter to everyone and, you know, we haven't seen that at all since we faced him, or at least he hasn't thrown that many," Crawford said of Ohtani. "That's just the type of pitcher he is he could go ahead and throw a new pitch in middle of a game and use it effectively. So it's tough."
Urshela delivered a lead-off double against Mariners reliever Diego Castillo in the seventh inning. Castillo got a pair of outs but was unable to escape the jam. He walked Ward with two outs ahead of Trout as Muñoz entered to face the Angels' stars. Muñoz got the weak contact they were hoping for, but it still resulted in runs scoring as the Angels took a 4-1 lead.
Sam Haggerty singled to open the bottom of the seventh inning for Seattle as a pinch-hitter. France then came through with a two-out double to left-center to plate Haggerty and trim the L.A. lead. Suárez followed with a single to right field that drove in France, but Suárez got caught in a rundown to end the inning down 4-3.
Seattle got runners on base in both the eighth and ninth inning but were unable to get the tying run across. One out singles from Hernández and Crawford in each inning both went no further with the Angels taking two of three games in the series.
"We played our style of baseball we're used to playing here in the series against the Angels," Servais said. "… "The approach at the plate, I thought we played much better defensively in this series. And you know, we pitched pretty well. Just, you know, they got big hits at the end."