It was the return of Showtime, Shohei Ohtani time, to the mound and national stage tonight after a several month hiatus. He was pretty good, except for the walk he gave up to Tony Kemp, and the curve, just like the pitch before, that he threw to George Springer, yielding a Crawford Box home run. It was George’s first home run since August 5th, his 20th of the year, and it was all it took to make Ohtanisan the losing pitcher.
His opponent, Gerrit Cole, like Ohtani and the Astros’ newest pitcher, Josh James, one of the very few starting pitchers this year to throw 100 MPH, was just a little bit better.