Guardians Prepare for Ohtani, Trout As Series Opens With Angels

Here's how two of the game's biggest stars have competed so far this season.

The Guardians have been feast or famine seemingly all season - both offensively and in terms of their overall results. The team has been involved in four consecutive series sweeps, splitting wins and losses evenly.

After dropping three in a row to the New York Yankees this weekend, the team took a six hour flight from New York to Los Angeles to get ready for a big set with the Angels. 

Of course, that means our first look this year at two of the game's greatest stars: Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. Here's how they're playing so far this season.

Ohtani's Up-and-Down Start

There was absolutely no doubt who the best player in baseball was by the end of the 2021 campaign. Shohei Ohtani has become the full-blown international superstar he was believed to be when the Angels signed him prior to the 2018 season. But he's having a bit of a rocky start to the 2022 season. 

On the mound, Ohtani is 1-2 with a 4.40 ERA through three starts. He has 26 strikeouts and a 1.05 WHIP through 14.1 innings. He was quite good against Houston in his first start of the season and totally dominant against the Astros when he pitched last week. He struck out 12 over six scoreless innings and gave up just one base hit. In fact, he's third in all of MLB right now in strikeouts behind only Carlos Rodon (who carved up Cleveland last week) and Tampa Bay's Shane McClanahan.

But he needed that outing to get some confidence back after Texas tagged him for six runs and six hits over 3.2 innings on April 14. That's happened to him only a couple times in his career, so I would expect when he pitches against Cleveland on Wednesday he'll look more like himself.

His only career outing against the Guardians came last year on May 19, when Cleveland scored two runs on five hits over 4.2 innings. Franmil Reyes doubled off him twice and the Cleveland won that game 3-2.

Offensively, things haven't gone particularly well for Ohtani so far. It took him eight games to get across the Mendoza line and he comes into the series with a .224 average on the season (15-for-67). He's hit three doubles and three homers, but hasn't gone deep in his last 28 at bats. He is 6-for-28 over his last seven games with just one of those doubles, but comes in after hitting a pair of singles in yesterday's 7-6 win over Baltimore.

Trout Playing Like An MVP

While Ohtani hasn't gotten off to the best start, superstar outfielder Mike Trout looks like an MVP candidate again this year (he won the award in 2014, 2016 and 2019).

Trout comes in hitting .333 through 12 games, hitting safely in seven straight and 10 of 12 this season. He returned to Angels lineup last Friday night after missing the previous three games. Trout was hit by a pitch on his left hand last Sunday at Texas.

He didn't look any worse for the wear in the weekend series though. Trout hit a pair of solo home runs against Baltimore on Saturday, giving him four on the season. That was his 21st career multi-homer game, which broke Tim Salmon and Vladimir Guerrero's all-time franchise records.

MIKE TROUT SECOND BOMB OF THE NIGHT TIES IT pic.twitter.com/ydvPCz4SQO

— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) April 24, 2022

That said, he hasn't had many RBI opportunities on the year. All four of his home runs have been solo shots and he's got one other RBI double. He is just 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.

You certainly don't want to give him too many chances though. Trout is already a slam-dunk Hall of Famer. In addition to his three AL MVP's so far, his resume includes the 2012 A.L. Rookie of the Year, 9x All-Star, 2x All-Star Game MVP & 8x Silver Slugger.

Pitching Probables

• April 25: RHP Shane Bieber (1-0 , 2.25) vs. RHP Michael Lorenzen (1-1, 4.82)
• April 26: RHP Triston McKenzie (0-1, 2.38) vs. LHP Patrick Sandoval (0-0, 0.00)
• April 27: RHP Zach Plesac (1-1, 1.53) vs. RHP Shohei Ohtani (1-2, 4.40)
• April 28: RHP Cal Quantrill (1-0, 3.94) vs. LHP Reid Detmers (0-1, 6.57)

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