Shohei Ohtani doesn’t disappoint in novel appearance in West Sacramento
Monday night was a sign that Major League Baseball can succeed in West Sacramento.
Sutter Health Park had its 20th sell out of the year with 39 games remaining on the schedule. The crowd was energized. The vast majority of fans stayed until the final out. All of which were potentially good for a region looking to bolster its case for MLB expansion when the league explores growing from 30 to 32 teams.
But what was good for West Sacramento’s expansion case might not have been great for the Athletics.
“I thought tonight was a great environment. We certainly, as the Dodgers, were pretty well represented,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team handed the A’s a 9-4.
The victory for Robert’s club came in front of a sellout crowd of 12,934 loaded with Dodgers fans who did well to replicate Chavez Ravine — and made onlookers search to find fans in green and gold.
The L.A. faithful chanted of the name of first baseman Freddy Freeman when he stepped to the plate in a manner befitting a World Series hero. They lost their minds when megastar Shohei Ohtani blasted a 432-foot home run to the right field berm, a rocketing shot that jumped off his bat at 112.3 miles per hour in the sixth inning. They screamed “root, root, root for the Dodgers!” during the seventh-inning stretch.
“I think we had market share tonight. It was fun,” Roberts said. “A lot of people don’t get a chance to play. People up here in this area, Northern California, get to see us, get to see Shohei put on a show, so that was fun tonight.”
Monday’s game was another example of the odd spectacle that is the A’s temporary stay in West Sacramento. Given their dwindling popularity within Northern California after uprooting from Oakland to move to Las Vegas, many of games against high profile opponents like the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox have seen visiting fans be the majority in West Sacramento.
But Monday was different. Dodgers blue and white went as far as the eye could see. It was easily the most lopsided it’s been during the A’s season and a half in the region.
Which makes sense. The Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions. Ohtani is unquestionably the biggest star in the sport — evident by the roughly 15 traveling media members covering the team, easily the most for any road team coming to West Sacramento, half of whom report for Japanese outlets.
“It’s kinda always like that for us,” said Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, who shares a name with A’s third baseman Max Muncy. “They love us, they want to see us play, and it’s been like that for my entire tenure here. Ever since we got (Ohtani) and (Yoshinobu Yamamoto), it doubled almost. It’s fun to go out there every night and know that you’re going to have support.”
Muncy hit one of L.A.’s three homers on the night joining Ohtani and center fielder Andy Pages, whose blast was the first allowed by A’s rookie starter Gage Jump since making his Major League debut in late May.
Ohtani’s West Sacramento at-bats worth cherishing
Ohtani might go down as the best baseball player of all time, providing unique memories to sports fans in Sacramento.
It’s not often major pro sports teams take on temporary homes — and it’s likely these three games would be Ohtani’s only in West Sacramento during his storied career (barring an A’s-Dodgers match up in the World Series or West Sacramento being granted expansion when Ohtani is in his late 30s).
The Dodgers aren’t a natural rival, meaning the A’s and Dodgers rotate home teams each season when they play each other. That means this would be the Dodgers’ only visit to Sutter Health Park during the A’s temporary stay that’s expected to run out after 2027.
Ohtani, of course, has won MVPs in four of his last five seasons. He’s unquestionably one of baseball’s best hitters while statistically he’s making a case to become one of baseball’s best pitchers. His home run was his 18th of the season, and he’ll be L.A.’s starting pitcher on Wednesday, taking the mound with an 8-2 record, 1.58 ERA, and 86 strikeouts to just 48 hits in 79 2/3 innings.
Before he joined the Dodgers in free agency, ESPN estimated his base value to a team should be $76 million per season. At the time in 2023, Nolan Arenado and Max Scherzer were baseball’s highest paid players at $43.33 million.
A’s manager Mark Kotsay knows what it’s like to pitch and hit at a high level. He’s one of the best outfielders in Cal State Fullerton history who also recorded the final five outs of the College World Series in 1995 as the team’s closer. And even Kotsay had a hard time putting into words what Ohtani is doing.
“I wouldn’t be able to describe it. Because I wasn’t able to do that, or get the opportunity to even try,” Kotsay said. “So in terms of him as a baseball player, he’s obviously very dynamic. There hasn’t been anyone in my lifetime that I’ve gotten to watch do what he’s doing, at the level he’s performing, on the mound every fifth day or sixth day. (And) obviously DHing and the success he’s had offensively for the last few years.”
Ohtani didn’t speak to the media after his 2-hit, 3-RBI night. He often doesn’t speak to reporters unless he pitches, which is common. It forces the throngs of Japanese reporters following him to search far and wide for stories about the star, which meant the A’s clubhouse before Monday’s game included A’s players getting peppered with questions about a player they’ve rarely seen.
Ohtani doesn’t do much media, at least in part, because of his daily routine that requires preparation as a hitter and pitcher.
“It’s very detailed, very regimented, very specific,” Robert said. “He’s a lot more physical than people think … He’s essentially operating as two separate baseball players, and that’s just hard to wrap your head around when there’s so only so many hours at the ballpark.”
To Robert’s point, Ohtani may be spending even fewer hours Sutter Health Park, where he might only play three games in his entire career.
Quite the novelty.
