There’s no real modern-day precedent for Ohtani, the young Japanese dual-threat who likely cost himself armfuls of money by coming over as an international amateur rather than waiting a couple of years, when he could’ve secured a contract akin to an armored car backing up to his home and dumping $100 bills through his living room window. Instead, he took the international signing bonus max the Angels offered (reportedly about $2.315 million, which wasn’t even the most on offer), is making the league minimum and early in his young career is threatening to do something different and unique pretty much every time he takes the field.

When his April start against the Royals was scuttled due to weather, I was bummed, because who doesn’t want to see a generational talent dominate for a few innings?

We got four innings of Ohtani on Tuesday before his trainer and Angels manager Mike Scioscia saw something that had the latter march to the mound and remove Ohtani as he was completing his warm-up pitches to start the fifth inning. It’s possible that Scioscia began to worry in the previous inning when Ohtani, with no real warning, suddenly lost his command. With two out and Mike Moustakas on first after a lead-off single, Ohtani suddenly couldn’t find the plate, throwing a four-seamer straight into the dirt that moved Moustakas to second, overcompensating to the point that his ball-two splitter nearly sailed over catcher Martin Maldonado’s head, then running the count to 3-0 before leaving two very hittable fastballs well up in the zone, with Alex Gordon smacking the last for a run-scoring single.

That I can recall this bit so clearly should clue you in that it was another one of those nights for the Royals at the plate, Ohtani or Nohtani.

The bummer in all this, if you like watching great baseball players do great baseball things, is that Ohtani was occasionally other-worldly before getting the hook. Thanks to @pitchingninja, you can see how filthy some of this was… provided you click on the links below, because FOR SOME REASON WE CAN’T EMBED TWITTER VIDEO RIGHT NOW MY GOD IS THIS WHAT THE 1970s WERE LIKE???

Here’s a lollipop curve to take your stomach away.

Here’s a slider that vapor-locked Salvador Perez.

Here is Alcides Escobar bailing Ohtani out on a slider a toddler would’ve known better than to swing at.

But then he went away and the fun was over.

Lost in this was that Ian Kennedy was quietly (very quietly) every bit Ohtani’s equal on Tuesday night. In his five innings, he put 10 runners on (seven hits, three walks), but struck out five and showed some veteran savvy in a couple of tight situations.

In the second, after striking out Justin Upton to start the inning, Kennedy surrendered a Luis Valbuena double, a Maldonado single and walked Chris Young to load the bases. But instead of panicking, Kennedy bore down and got Kaleb Cowart (strikeout) and Michael Hermosillo (groundout) to end the inning.

Kennedy ran into significant trouble in the fifth, surrendering his only run of the game on back-to-back doubles by Ian Kinsler (of course) and Zack Cozart to tie the game up. Compounding matters, Kennedy’s wild pitch moved Cozart to third and Mike Trout walked. Kennedy induced another Upton strikeout for out one, but walked Valbuena to load the sacks with one away.

And then Kennedy hung an 0-1 curve… that Maldonado popped out.

And then a belt-high fastball to Young caught the center of the plate… and Young popped out too. Ned Yost, thinking wisely, removed Kennedy at this point.

Props to Kennedy for getting Rustin Dudd to tweet a bunch of words and numbers I never expected to apply to a Kennedy-Trout matchup, though.

Ian Kennedy is a Mike Trout Whisperer. After two hitless AB's tonight, Trout is 2 for 14 against him, tied for the sixth lowest batting average against an opposing pitcher (min. 15 plate appearances).

— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) June 7, 2018

(To recap: I can embed Rustin’s mug, so long as it’s just text. Just no video. You’re a cruel mistress, technology.)

Did it ultimately matter? Dear reader, you knew the answer to that before you even clicked on the link. Scott Barlow relieved Kennedy in the sixth, and gave up a two-run dinger to Kinsler (OF COURSE) to turn a tie game into a two-run deficit. An inning later, Upton cranked a leadoff homer. By the nature of what it is you do when you recap a game, I’m gonna go ahead and finish her out, but you feel free to skip to the end.

The Royals cut the deficit to a run in the top of the eighth. With Justin Anderson on the mound, the Royals strung together a pair of one-out walks by Moustakas and Perez, with both advancing on a wild pitch that initially was ruled to have caught Moose at third before it was overturned. Gordon drove in both runs again with an RBI single that glanced under Kinsler’s glove. After a Hunter Dozier single put the tying run on third, Blake Parker was brought in to get the four-out save, striking out Ryan Goins to end the eighth.

Parker quickly went three-up, three-down in the ninth.

The Bright Spot: Four innings of Ohtani (the Angels are calling it a blister) is better than no innings of Ohtani. And hey, kudos to Gordon on his first three-RBI day in nearly a month. Why can’t he hit second when Escobar is a tire fire? No idea.

The Nadir: Alcides Escobar hitting second was a bad idea in 2015, never mind now.

The Next Step: Long as they’re out in Cali, the Royals will pay a visit to Oakland to take on Frankie Montas (he threw eight shutout innings in a 16-0 ass-kicking of the Royals last Friday). Jason Hammel will endeavor to counter after allowing seven hits and three earned his last time out against [checks notes] the A’s. Good scheduling, MLB.

Angels Vitals

Royals vs. Angels

Offense

Pitching

Angels Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday

Tropeano hasn’t yet had a chance at a full big league season, but he’s shown in his bits and pieces that he can be a solid addition to a rotation. He’s not striking out as many as he did prior to his year off, but his walks are down and he’s been much more difficult to hit this season. As is the case with so many guys who don’t have great stuff, when he gets hit, he gets hit hard, so he’s had a bit of a home run problem. The fastball won’t overwhelm you, averaging just a bit higher than 91 MPH. Against righties, he’ll often start hitters with a slider, and that’s been the culprit on three of his home runs allowed this season. Given Jorge Soler’s propensity to swing away at sliders, he might catch one in the middle of the plate and get a first pitch homer in this one. Of course, that would be the first home run on the first pitch of the year, so maybe not. If the Royals can wait him out, he does tend to fall apart a third time through, allowing a .319/.396/.553 line. He did face the Royals in April when they were at their absolute worst and went 6.2 shutout innings, so the Royals should be out for revenge.

Duffy is looking to build on another solid start, though it was not nearly as good as his start against the Rangers. He allowed just one run in six innings, but his control was shaky with four walks and he didn’t get a ton of swings and misses. Starts like that happen and if a pitcher is going well, you talk about how he gutted it out without good stuff, but when he’s had a season like Duffy, you hope the end results weren’t a fluke and that he was about to return to his early season form. I’m encouraged that his changeup was still good, and in a right-handed heavy lineup like the Angels, he’ll need that to be working or else he could get in some serious trouble.

Tuesday

Heaney is another Angels starter with injury issues. He’s never made more than 18 starts in a season, but he’s been pretty good this year. He’s struck out more batters than innings thrown and his walks are at a respectable level. After allowing 12 home runs in 21.2 innings last year, he’s only allowed four this season, so that’s obviously a huge improvement. He won’t shock you with his velocity, averaging just about 92-93 MPH, but he has one of the lowest exit velocities allowed at 85.8 MPH and a lot of that is from a pretty solid spin rate on his sinker. Add in a curve that gets a whiff 41.8 percent of the time, and it’s easy to see why he’s been so effective this year. It’s interesting to me that he’s allowed a .221/.285/.354 line with the bases empty and a .354/.400/.542 line with runners in scoring position. I wish I could tell you which way it’s going to go, but one of those things is likely to look more like the other by the end of the year. He gave up four runs on seven hits over five innings against the Royals in April.

Keller gets his second shot at a start, and his first one was really encouraging. He only made it three innings due to a low pitch count, but he really encouraged me by getting eight swinging strikes out of the 51 pitches he threw. If he can maintain that, the sky is the limit for him as a starter. His swinging strike rate of seven percent out of the bullpen makes me skeptical he can keep it up, but I’d like nothing more than for him to maintain. Given how righty heavy the Angels are, it’s a little surprising that they hit right-handed pitching so well, but they really do, so Keller will need to be on his game. The Angels also do a nice job of hitting fastballs and sinkers, which Keller throws mostly, but they are hitting just .248 (though with a .451 SLG) against fastballs 95 MPH+, so it’s important for him to maintain velocity to have success.

Wednesday

The Royals were supposed to get their first look at Ohtani the pitcher during their series in April, but the game was snowed out, so they were lucky to miss him. I don’t think they’ll be so lucky this time around, since the game is, you know, in Southern California. If you’ve followed baseball at all this season, you know how amazing he’s been. One of the most impressive things about him is just how many swings and misses he gets. With the exception of a start where he only lasted two innings, he’s had at least 10 whiffs in every game he’s pitched. A disastrous spring was supposed to show that he wasn’t ready for the big leagues, but he’s been amazing as both a pitcher and a hitter. He lives at 97+ with his fastball and mixes in a slider and a phenomenal splitter that is nearly impossible to hit when it’s on. The Royals do okay with velocity, hitting .265 with a .429 SLG, so maybe they can single him to oblivion? I honestly don’t see this ending well for the Royals if Ohtani is even close to on his game.

Kennedy has been pretty much a disaster over his last five starts since he threw six shutout innings against the Tigers. In those five games, he’s posted an unsightly 11.03 ERA in 23.2 innings. The eight home runs he’s allowed indicate that he’s regressed to the mean in that regard and I have a pretty big fear of the power in this Angels lineup against his fastball. This year, he’s allowed a .357 average with a .698 SLG and 10 home runs allowed. I still can’t figure out why he hasn’t figured out a way to incorporate his changeup more, given the .104 average and .188 SLG he’s allowed on it. I don’t know what the answer is for Kennedy, but what he’s doing isn’t working. All that said, he did throw six innings and allowed just a run on seven hits against the Angels during his fast start in April, so maybe that’ll rekindle some of his old success.

The Angels aren’t playing their best baseball and they don’t play well at home, as I mentioned earlier. Even so, the talent disparity between the two teams is pretty stark and I don’t really like the matchups with Keller likely to only go four or five innings tops and Kennedy struggling so much. I do believe the Royals snag a win, but that’s it.