온라인카지노Shohei Ohtani (29, LA Angels) ends the season early due to injury. An elbow injury ended his season as a pitcher, and an oblique muscle injury ended his season as a hitter. His final game with the Los Angeles Angels may already be over.
The LA Angels officially announced Ohtani’s listing on the 10-day injured list (IL) on the 17th (Korean time). The reason is an oblique muscle injury. Ohtani complained of pain in his right side during practice batting on the 5th, and has not played since.
Even after suffering an elbow injury, Otani showed his fighting spirit by continuing to play as a batsman, garnering both excitement and questions from fans and the media. He appears to have been hoping to return for some time. He was not put on the injured list and was checked every day to see if he was in remission. However, his return continued to be delayed. Angels manager Phil Nevin expected his return on the 17th or 18th, but he ended up being placed on the injured list on the 17th.
In theory, Ohtani cannot play in a major league game for 10 days. However, the Angels added that Ohtani will not play in the remainder of the season. The season is out. As of the 16th, the Angels have 14 regular season games left, but Ohtani’s 2023 season ends here.
He is not a player who has had that many injuries since his major league debut in 2018. Despite suffering a serious injury during the 2018 season, when his elbow ligament was ruptured, he continued to play as a hitter. After the season ended, he underwent elbow ligament reconstruction surgery (Tommy John surgery), and after completing rehabilitation, he has not missed playing as a hitter since 2019. Starting in 2021, he began working as a pitcher again in earnest and created a sensation by combining pitching and batting, which changed the major league paradigm.
He also performed well this year. He participated in the 5th World Baseball Classic (WBC) before the season and performed well as both a hitter and pitcher, leading his country, Japan, to victory. The player who threw the ball that confirmed Japan’s victory was Otani. Entering the season, he continued his outstanding performance on both pitches and bats. As a pitcher, he was on pace to challenge for the Cy Young Award, and as a hitter, he led several title races, including home runs, and was expected to become the second Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2021.
Ohtani appeared in 135 games as a batter this year and recorded a batting average of 0.304, 44 home runs, 95 RBI, 102 runs, 20 stolen bases, and an OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) of 1.066. Despite missing quite a bit of time recently, he still leads the American League in home runs and on-base percentage. As a pitcher, he started 23 games and pitched 132 innings, going 10 wins, 5 losses, an ERA of 3.14, and 167 strikeouts. He performed well in both pitches and bats.
However, on August 24th, while pitching in the first game of a doubleheader against Cincinnati, he felt something wrong with his arm and was forced to leave, and after a thorough examination, it was revealed that his right elbow ligaments were torn, and everything started to go wrong. After that, he stopped pitching and focused only on batting. However, some abnormal symptoms were revealed in batting, such as a drop in launch angle, and due to an oblique muscle injury, he can no longer set records this season as a pitcher or batter.
His oblique injury is not a big problem. It appears to be a problem that can be resolved with rest. The problem is the elbow. Ohtani’s side emphasizes that this is a different area than during Tommy John in 2018. At the time, the surgical site was healthy, and since the surgery was performed on a new site, it is expected that the rehabilitation period will not be that long. In fact, he doesn’t have to have surgery if he just wants to bat. However, if he wants to continue his career as a pitcher and hitter, he must undergo surgery. In this case, batters will be able to play next year, but pitchers will likely be able to do so only after mid-2025.
The reason this issue is attracting greater attention is because Ohtani will become eligible as a free agent (FA) at the end of this season. The high value of Ohtani comes from his unique ability to both throw and hit. It is natural for the recruiting team to want Ohtani to play healthy from the start of next year. As the season ended early, the prediction that Ohtani will undergo elbow surgery as soon as possible has become more prevalent. In theory, if he undergoes surgery now, he can be available as a batsman for next year’s opening game.
On the other hand, his time with the Angels ended without a farewell game. Ohtani signed a contract with the Angels in 2018 and played for six years until this year. The Angels cannot afford to catch Ohtani. There was no significant movement to extend the contract. It is expected that Ohtani’s last game in an Angels uniform will be his performance as a designated hitter against Oakland on September 4, where he went 0-hit in 3 at-bats, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts, and 1 stolen base. Until then, I had no idea it would end like this, but now it has become a reality.
The first ever ‘two-time unanimous MVP’ in 2021 is also a mystery. Ohtani was unanimously selected as the 2021 American League MVP. Even if he was not a pitcher, if he accumulated records as a hitter until the end of the season, it was assessed that he would likely be the unanimous MVP this year as well.
In fact, Ohtani’s WAR this year, calculated by Baseball Reference, is 10.0 including pitches and hits, which is an overwhelming 1st place, beating out 2nd place Corey Seager (Texas)’s 6.9. However, there are predictions that there may be a departure vote as he has now lost a significant portion of his first place record in the American League batting category to other players.