OAKLAND – Starting pitcher Cole Irvin was worn out after his stellar performance in the A’s 6-2 win over the Giants. He threw 100 pitches, struck out eight over eight scoreless innings, reached base twice, and even collected an RBI.
Irvin then looks at Shohei Ohtani, who, in his MVP-caliber season, has had days like that all year long.
“I know I was exhausted going through eight innings, having four at-bats in San Francisco,” Irvin said about the game on June 27. “Him doing it every fifth, sixth or seventh day, and then being able to hit the way he does is something that from across the dugout you respect.”
Going into his start for the Angels against the A’s at the Coliseum on Monday, Ohtani, 27, leads Major League Baseball with 34 home runs and is second with 74 RBIs. He also has a 4-1 record in 13 starts with a respectable 3.49 ERA. To boot, he’s among the top 20 in baseball with 12 stolen bases.
With this two-game series between division rivals being Ohtani and the Angels’ last regular-season visit to the Coliseum in 2021, a few A’s players were asked if they or anyone else on the team could pitch and hit at a professional level.
The simple answer: Not a chance.
“There’s not one guy in the world that can,” said A’s starter Chris Bassitt, who saw the buzz that surrounded Ohtani at the All-Star Game in Denver last week. “Just him.”
“Nobody has a guy like Ohtani,” A’s outfielder Mark Canha said. “He’s the only one. That’s why he’s so famous.”
Besides his start Monday, Ohtani, the Angels’ designated hitter, will likely also be in the lineup for both games of the short series.
“You’re not going to see that kind of success, both pitching and hitting,” from another player, A’s manager Bob Melvin said, “and I don’t know if anybody else is coming along the pike that even resembles that.”
Since he made his big-league debut at the Coliseum on March 29, 2018, Ohtani has 81 home runs and 221 RBIs in 341 games. In 25 starts, he has an 8-4 record and a 3.89 ERA, and he seems to have become a better pitcher since he had Tommy John surgery in 2018 after he won the American League Rookie of the Year award.
“There’s no one else to ever do this in the history of the game,” Bassitt said. “I understand Babe Ruth, but Ohtani is drastically better than Babe Ruth. The game is drastically better than back then.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever see this again.”
Tim Hudson and Sean Doolittle were two former A’s pitchers who could handle a bat. Hudson, a 17-year major league starter, had 98 hits and a .196 on-base percentage in 710 career plate appearances, and Doolittle was a hitter in the A’s farm system from 2007-2009 before he was converted into a reliever. He joined Oakland’s bullpen in 2012.
Melvin said what Doolittle did, adjusting to hitting to pitching, “and accelerate that quickly to the big leagues, and by the end of that year was pitching the seventh inning for us, that was impressive to watch.”
Melvin did use Doolittle once as a pinch-hitter in June 2014. The A’s were down 7-6 to the Boston Red Sox in the bottom of the 10th inning when Doolittle replaced left-hander Fernando Abad in the order. With two outs and nobody on, Doolittle grounded out.
“That wasn’t very well received,” Melvin said, referring to A’s front office.
There are individuals within the A’s organization who have both hit and pitched at a level past high school.
In his junior season at Mississippi State, designated hitter Mitch Moreland hit 10 home runs and had 62 RBIs in 60 games, and also went 3-0 with a 3.20 ERA in 16 appearances for the Bulldogs. Moreland has pitched twice in the big leagues, with the last coming in 2017 with Boston.
A’s third-base coach Mark Kotsay was inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame two years ago for his time at Cal State Fullerton from 1994 to 1996 when he batted .404 in 190 games.
In 1995 when he won the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top amateur player and led the Titans to an NCAA title, Kotsay had a 2-1 record, 11 saves and an 0.31 ERA in 29 innings as a reliever.
Kotsay, though, felt his future in professional baseball would be as a position player.
“The success I had my sophomore year pitching kind of catapulted that idea, but ultimately in my junior year, the success I had as a hitter outweighed the pitching aspect, so I chose that route,” Kotsay said,
“There were a few teams that had mentioned possibly their desire to have me pitch, but it was at the time kind of taboo.”
Kotsay and others mentioned third baseman Matt Chapman and center fielder Ramon Laureano as two players who could throw out of the bullpen just because of their respective arm strengths. Chapman pitched on occasion at Fullerton, and once for Team USA, but other than that, has not thrown off a mound since he was in the eighth grade.
“I’d be good for an inning,” Chapman said, “but then I’d need Tommy John (surgery).”
Melvin, though, said Chapman has lobbied to pitch in the past. Just don’t expect it to happen, especially if the score got out of hand.
“A (blowout) game and I run him out there? I would pick up my walking papers as I was leaving,” Melvin said.
As far as who is the A’s best-hitting pitcher, Irvin’s name was mentioned after he came up through the Phillies’ system. Sean Manaea was also mentioned – jokingly or otherwise — more than once.
Manaea went 2-for-2 with a double on June 25 against Johnny Cueto and the Giants and had three hits and a walk in 14 career plate appearances. Hey, it ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.
“Sean is batting 1.000 this season,” Irvin said. “I honestly think that if a guy’s batting 1.000, he’s the best hitter on the staff. So, I think he’s got me beat.”
“Sean Manaea rakes, as we saw in San Francisco,” Canha said.
In 38 career games against the A’s, Ohtani has 10 home runs, 38 RBIs, and an. .899 OPS. Success as a pitcher has been more fleeting, though, as he owns a 5.21 ERA and a 2-2 record in four career starts. He also had 23 strikeouts against the A’s, and nine walks.
One of those homers came against Irvin on June 16 at the Coliseum, a 435-foot blast that had an exit velocity of 111 mph.
“He got me this year on a hanging slider,” Irvin said. “The loudest ball I’ve ever heard.”
Irvin, though, struck out Ohtani in a May 30 game in Anaheim. Still, what Ohtani is accomplishing this season may never be duplicated — certainly not by an A’s player anytime soon.
“The fact that he can go out there and do what he does on a daily basis and hit 33 home runs in the first half and pitch, it’s amazing, and I don’t think anybody else can do it and that’s why he’s so special,” Chapman said.
“He throws a fastball like he’s Tyler Glasnow, he hits a baseball like he’s Matt Olson and he steals bases like he’s Fernando Tatis. It’s pretty incredible what he can do.”