Shohei Ohtani singles in first major league at bat for Angels

John Hickey | Special for USA TODAY Sports

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OAKLAND – Shohei Ohtani made plenty of noise over the course of 23 years in carving out a path to the major leagues as a dominant force in Japanese baseball both as a hitter and starting pitcher.

But the three hours he spent in the visitor’s clubhouse in the Oakland Coliseum Thursday morning might have been Ohtani at his quietest. The noise didn’t come until his first at-bat, a two-out single to right in a two-run Angels second inning against the A’s.

Ohtani lashed the first pitch he saw from Kendall Graveman for a single to right field, then grounded out in his next two at-bats.

"Welcome to the Sho!"



Ohtani logs his first Major League hit in his first career AB! #OpeningDay pic.twitter.com/I3hGREqjrE — Angels (@Angels) March 29, 2018

Sitting in the locker area between pitcher Noe Ramirez and outfielder Kole Calhoun before the game, Ohtani had his back to the room and, unlike the rest of his teammates, didn’t get caught up in the Cubs-Marlins game blaring on the TV.

He seemed a man alone in his thoughts. Ohtani’s manager, Mike Scioscia, is as loquacious as they come, however, and he downplayed suggestions that baseball’s first regular pitcher-outfielder in a century was in any way out of the ordinary in the countdown to his MLB debut.

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“We know that Shohei, like any player, is excited,” Scioscia said. “Shohei is well beyond his years as far as analyzing the game and going out there and understanding his talent. He is very comfortable. He’s going to go out there and compete very well. And hopefully help us win.”

Perhaps no player in the last two decades other than fellow Japan native Ichiro Suzuki has been as much of a question on the eve of his MLB opener. Ichiro was the first position player to cross the Pacific, and the question was whether or not he could hit big league pitching.

Then-Mariner manager Lou Piniella wasn’t seeing any power from Ichiro in spring training back in 2001, but the day he talked about not seeing it in the local papers, Ichiro hit a home run. The right fielder later said he’d been trying to keep his power under wraps in the spring. He wound up winning the MVP.

The question for Ohtani is whether he can both pitch and hit at a big league level. He didn’t do much of either in the spring, going 4-for-32 (.125) at the plate and owning a 27.00 ERA in two Cactus League games. Most of his game work in the spring came in B games, an intrasquad game and an exhibition game.

There was a question if he’d start the opener, but that was settled once the Angels said his first start would come Sunday. So Thursday’s start didn’t catch the A’s asleep because, as A’s manager Bob Melvin said, “Some of the speculation is that he won’t (bat) the day before and the day after he pitches. We figured it would happen.”

It’s not at all clear that Ohtani was pulling an Ichiro and was trying to keep his game under wraps this spring. However Scioscia isn’t letting the spring numbers dampen his enthusiasm.

“You get a sense of how hard he’s working to get acclimated to baseball in the United States,” Scioscia said. “I think he’s done a great job here. I feel he’s ready.”

Is Scioscia ready to handle the first two-way player basically since Babe Ruth?

“It’s almost like there are two different players,” the manager said. “There’s Shohei the player and Shohei the pitcher. Maybe we should give him two different numbers so that we can decide if he’s a hitter today or a pitcher today.”

Thursday, he proved he's definitely a hitter.