An upcoming east meets west summit has been in the headlines recently within newspaper pages that don’t mention sports. But, on a collision course for AL West supremacy is a west meets west three-game bout between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, neither side willing to freeze their weapons.

The Angels swoop down on Houston Monday through Wednesday, April 23-25, but both teams need to yawn their way through weekend series involving plummeting teams, beforehand. The Astros are in Chicago seeing if the 4-14 White Sox have, indeed, gotten out of their slump, as TRS’ Nello Rubio argues in a recent article.

The Walk-Up to the Summit

Meanwhile, the Angels are at home, trying to tame a 9-12 San Francisco Giants team. Following Saturday’s games, the Angels are looking up at the 16-7 Astros from second place in the AL West, having lost, 8-1, to the Giants on Friday, while Justin Verlander and the Astros blanked the Sox, 10-zip, as the champs leapfrogged over the 14-8 Halos, gaining a half-game advantage.

The Astros finished their thorough bleaching of the Sox on Sunday, with a 7-1 spanking, for their sixth straight win. After the Angels came up short vs the Giants, Sunday, 4-2, they fell to 1.5 games back of the ‘Stros, with the three-game Angels/Astros battle royale starting Monday.

Houston outscored the White Sox 27-2 in their sweep in Chicago.

An interesting side-note in Friday’s Astros/Sox game came in the fifth inning, when third-year Sox third baseman Tim Anderson broke up veteran Verlander’s no-hitter with a single. The Houston Chronicle tells the story here, with post-game interviews from both parties. In an “unwritten rules of baseball” event, the elder Verlander essentially taught Anderson, the younger, a thing or two about how to play the game “the right way.” Bottom line: Don’t be surprised if you see Anderson climbing out of an SUV wearing a backpack in Saturday’s game, because Verlander took him to school.

Another “Unwritten Rules” Violation: Looking Ahead

While the Astros and Angels dutifully fulfill the schedule’s needs through Sunday with their respective sub-.500 opponents (taking one game at a time, of course), we’ll look ahead to the no-holds-barred, steel cage match-up that appears to be Tuesday’s inevitability: The summit meeting on the mound between the Astros’ Charlie Morton, about whom fans know little, and Shohei Ohtani, about whom fans, by now, know what cereal he likes on alternate Thursdays.

The ‘Stros and Halos will play Monday to kick off the three-game series at Minute Maid Park, each with a starting pitcher of some note. But, the media will be laser-focused on Tuesday’s duel between Morton and Japan’s wildly successful and popular 少年不思議 (shōnen Fushigi), Japanese for “boy wonder.”

A two-way player, of course, Ohtani finds himself, coming into Saturday’s game against the Giants, batting .342 in 38 at-bats as the Angels’ DH. He’s hit three home runs and boasts an OPS of 1.048. As a hurler, Ohtani is 2-1 with a 3.60 ERA in 15 innings. He’s walked four and struck out 19 while holding opposing hitters to a measly .154 batting average.

Ohtani actually became the first player with two wins and three home runs in his team’s first 10 games of a season since Jim Shaw for the 1919 Washington Senators.

Morton, however, has quietly ascended to the top of the AL’s leaderboard in ERA, with an 0.72 in his 25 innings pitched, with an untarnished 3-0 record. Opposing hitters have only managed a .176 against Morton, who has allowed only six walks while whiffing 33.

In fact, the Astros now have three of the top four ERAs among AL starters, including Gerrit Cole at 0.96 and Verlander at 1.10.

Halo Hits

According to the April 19 Orange County Register, it’s news that Ohtani has recently been moved up to hitting sixth in the Angels’ batting order. He had batted seventh in the order once and eighth six times before moving up to sixth against Boston on Thursday, going 0-for-4 with three Ks. I’m guessing this is a ladder Ohtani is climbing, as the team assesses how their new prodigy handles big league pitching, with his ultimate landing spot possibly being either third or fourth in the lineup.

While a left-handed hitter, Ohtani pitches righty. He’s been battling a blister on his right middle finger, a malady which came up last week in a loss to Boston, in which he was only able to last two innings.

“The blister is healing pretty well right now,” Ohtani said through an interpreter after the Angels’ 8-2 loss to the Red Sox last Tuesday. “I’m planning on throwing my bullpen as scheduled, two days [Sunday] before my start [Tuesday in Houston]. I’ll try to take care of my blister.”

Hide the Pickles

Longtime Astro fans (with good memories, anyway) will remember Nolan Ryan‘s Houston stint (1980-1988) was often bedeviled by blisters on throwing-hand fingers. A look into the Astros dugout between innings of a Ryan start would often reveal the eventual Hall-of-Famer sitting with his fingers stuck into a jar of pickle juice. He thought the briny brew would heal, or at least, toughen his blisters.

Astro fans, always known for their collective ability to pick up a cue, will no doubt hustle to make sure they raid the pickle shelves of local HEBs prior to Shohei Ohtani’s Tuesday start.

After all, Nolan will be watching. From the front row.