Shohei Ohtani Removed As Starting Pitcher Due To Traffic

Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his role as starting pitcher in the Los Angeles Angels’ Thursday contest with the Oakland Athletics. A traffic jam was the eventual cause of Ohtani’s absence from the starting pitcher spot. The Angels ended up slotting Ohtani in at designated hitter for the game.

Ohtani was a passenger on an Angels’ bus en route to RingCentral Coliseum, in a drive that would usually take around 45 minutes. Catcher Kurt Suzuki was also a passenger on this bus. However, an accident on the Bay Bridge ended up causing massive delays. As the traffic seemed to be seeing no improvement, Ohtani was forced to employ another strategy. He returned to his hotel and opted to take the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s translator, told the team that “there was an issue with the transfer on the BART”. Ohtani arrived at the stadium much later than usual.

“For us, Shohei’s most comfortable, he’s pretty much regimented to get everything going about 4 o’clock for his start,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said. “It exceeded that by maybe an hour so we started calling the audible at that point to not pitch him tonight. And if we’re not going to pitch him we’re going to DH him.”

The Angles started Patrick Sandoval in the 5-0 loss to Oakland. Sandoval held his own, however, as he allowed zero runs across five innings while posting four strikeouts and two walks. Oakland’s Chris Bassit still managed to lead his team to a 5-0 victory despite Sandoval’s honorable showing. Ohtani went 0-3 from the plate with a walk.

BART commented on this matter through Twitter, writing “First, wow, what an honor to host a baseball superstar like Shohei Ohtani on BART. We did not experience any issues on our end. We confirmed with Operations Control Center there was no delay for any Coliseum-heading train during the Bay Bridge incident.”

Ohtani, barring any additional traffic jams, is set to return as the starting pitcher for Friday’s game.