By Tom Verducci
Tuesday: home run. Wednesday: home run. Friday: home run. Sunday: seven shutout innings, the first 6 1/3 perfect. Today: full-blown phenomenon.
How was your week? The one for Shohei Ohtani of the Angels burst with historic significance and promise. The arc of his coming to America is dizzying: mystery begat hype, hype yielded to skepticism, skepticism evanesced under sheer amazement.
Less than two weeks after the question about Ohtani was whether he even deserved to be in the majors, the question now is how big this happening can get. A week like this, and suddenly the horizon is as big as it was for Fernando Valenzuela in April of 1981, when he opened with five straight complete game wins, four of them shutouts; or Mark Fidrych on June 28, 1971, when he beat the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball, smack in an 11-2 run in which he completed 12 of those 13 starts; or for Babe Ruth on May 6, 1918, when the Red Sox started their star pitcher in the field for the first time.