‘Pitcher Wins, Home Runs, Fielding Percentage’
‘record’ for a single game in 2019
’10 wins-10 home runs’ for Ohtani in his first two seasons
“I wish there were more players like Michael Lorenzen (31).”
So said Shohei Ohtani (29-LA Angels) after being named the 2021 Major League Baseball (MLB) American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP). If Ohtani was the “Idoryu” of the AL, Lorenzen, who played for Cincinnati, was the two-hit wonder of the National League (NL).
But when Lorenzen joined Ohtani with the Angels last year, he gave up hitting and focused on pitching. This year, after starting in Detroit and becoming a Phillies player at the trade deadline (Feb. 2), Lorenzen pitched exclusively on the mound, and in the Phillies’ 7-0 win over Washington in a 10-day road trip, he tossed nine innings of no-hit ball, striking out four and walking none, a feat not even Ohtani could accomplish.
The Phillies are also the team that gave Lorenzen a memorable experience. On Sept. 5, 2019, while still with Cincinnati, Lorenzen pitched two innings in relief in the top of the seventh before hitting a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to give the Reds an 8-5 lead before switching to center field in the top of the ninth. With Cincinnati’s 8-5 win, 온라인섯다 Lorenzen became the first player in 98 years to record a win, a home run, and a fielding error in the same game since Babe Ruth (1895-1948) on June 14, 1921. Ohtani has never done it either.
Lorenzen also made MLB history on July 1, 2018, when he pinch-hit in the bottom of the seventh inning against Milwaukee, becoming the first pitcher to hit a pinch-hit home run in 65 years since Tommy Byrne (1919-2007) on May 17, 1953. Ohtani still hasn’t done it.
Ohtani also did something no one has done before, including Lorenzen on Tuesday. Ohtani started the nightcap and held the San Francisco offense to one run (unearned) on three hits and three walks over six innings to earn his 10th win of the season in a 4-1 victory. The win gave Ohtani, who now has 40 home runs as a hitter, a double-digit win and double-digit home run season after a 15-win, 고스톱 34-homer campaign last year. Ohtani is the first player in MLB history to do so in back-to-back years.
