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ANAHEIM — The American League MVP race got a lot more interesting Thursday night.
Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani turned in perhaps the best pitching performance of his career, falling just four outs shy of a no-hitter to help the Angels to a 4-2 win over the A’s at Angel Stadium to complete a three-game sweep. Ohtani walked Tony Kemp to lead off the game, but didn’t allow a hit until a two-out single from Conner Capel in the eighth inning. He struck out 10 over eight scoreless innings and also went 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI single in the first to extend his hit streak to a career-high 14 games.
It was another incredible showing on the mound from Ohtani, who has been elite as both a pitcher and a hitter yet again this season after winning the AL MVP Award unanimously last year. He reached 15 wins for the time in his career and has posted a 2.35 ERA with 213 strikeouts in 161 innings this year, with one start remaining in Oakland on Wednesday. Ohtani has the highest strikeout rate in the Majors and also leads all AL pitchers with 10 outings of at least 10 strikeouts. He’s also hitting .275/.358/.529 with 34 homers and 94 RBIs in 151 games this season.
Ohtani is in an MVP race with Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who has hit 61 homers (and counting), tied for the seventh-most in AL or NL history and 12 behind the record of 73 set by Barry Bonds in 2001. He also is in the conversation for the AL Cy Young Award with other top candidates including the White Sox’s Dylan Cease, the Astros’ Justin Verlander and the Blue Jays’ Alek Manoah.
Ohtani came close to even more history on Thursday night despite not having his best fastball, as he threw his four-seamer just four times out of his 108 pitches. But after walking the first batter he faced, he induced a double play to end the first and kept it rolling from there. He relied heavily on his secondary pitches, throwing 52 sliders, 22 cutters, 14 curveballs and his new two-seamer 11 times, including for a critical strikeout of Sean Murphy to end the fifth inning.
He appeared headed toward throwing his first career no-hitter before Capel connected on a 1-2 cutter, driving it past a diving Livan Soto at shortstop to break up the no-hit bid with two outs in the eighth. Ohtani then gave up a single to Dermis Garcia on a 1-2 curveball, but got out of the jam by getting Shea Langeliers to ground out to third to end the inning – and Ohtan’s night, a masterful outing in his final start at Angel Stadium this season.
