Angels News: Ohtani Out-Pitched in Loss to Astros, Neto's First Homer

It all comes down to the tiebreaker.

With Shohei Ohtani taking the mound on Tuesday, it looked like the Angels were in prime position to take their second straight game against the Houston Astros and get a firm hold on their first series of the year.

Unfortunately, despite lasting seven innings, he struggled near the end and ended up giving up six hits with three runs and saw his ERA go from 2.54 to 2.74. These mishaps likely came from the 28-year-old star still having to manually show his signals and being paired up with a catcher playing his first game in Chris Okey.

Just pathetic management by the #Angels.

They don't add a catcher, so Ohtani is stuck with some random AAA catcher.

And because of that, Ohtani continues to call his own pitches (where he's too reliant on fastball/sweeper) and the opponents feast on it.

— BTH (@BeyondTheHalo) May 10, 2023

But nonetheless, he was still able to become the league-leader in strikeouts and also pass up the legendary Babe Ruth in that category.

With his 502nd career K, Shohei Ohtani passed Babe Ruth in career strikeouts.

(Via @EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/CMK5RWLw7F

— MLB (@MLB) May 10, 2023

Five home runs have been allowed by Ohtani over the last three games and that is out of character fro him. However, every star has their games with mistakes and he is no exception.

He reflected on exactly what he failed to do after the 1-3 loss to Houston.

“The long balls have been hurting me the last few starts,” said Ohtani, who has allowed five homers in the three games.

(Via OC Register)

On the other hand, Framber Valdez took the mound for the Astros and had a stellar performance as he lasted eight innings while allowing only three hits and one run. 12 of our own Halos players struck out to due to his throws and Hunter Renfroe was among the bunch.

Renfroe touched on what Valdez did so well through the entirety of the match.

Framber Valdez’s TWELVE strikeoutspic.twitter.com/PazUPYuQQs https://t.co/68jeV4K4W6

— APOLLO MEDIA (@ApolloHOU) May 10, 2023

“He looked good,” said Hunter Renfroe, who struck out all three times against Valdez. “He had made good pitches, stayed out the middle of the zone for the most part. Had the curveball and cutter working. If you stay out of the middle of the zone, you’re going to miss a lot of hard contact, so he did a good job.”

(Via OC Register)

And finally, one of the other bright spots about this game was the rookie shortstop reaching a huge milestone.

Zach Neto connected on his first career home run at the bottom of the third inning before the game fell apart for LA.

On this date last year Zach Neto @ZachNeto25 was most likely on a bus to play against Ohio State with Campbell, today he hit his first big league homerun pic.twitter.com/Oe7WPj2FRa

— Stephen Schoch (@bigdonkey47) May 10, 2023

“When I hit it, I touched all the bases and my adrenaline started pumping and I couldn’t really feel my body,” Neto said. “It was one of those things. Did that just happen for real?”(Via OC Register)

We will catch all of you a 1 pm PT for the final match of the series!