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The story
A thread went up on 5ch’s “Live Broadcast General” board reporting that Shohei Ohtani had once again failed to deliver in a late-inning scoring chance. Replies pointed out that he also came up empty in key moments during this year’s WBC game against Venezuela, with many commenters saying they can’t recall him getting a go-ahead or tying hit in a close game from the 7th inning on. The discussion also drew comparisons to Munetaka Murakami and catcher Will Smith, who struggled in the same game, splitting commenters between those citing his batting stats to judge his performance and those worried about fatigue and decline from his two-way workload.
What people said
Same thing happened in the WBC Venezuela game
Gets a hit early then goes cold when it actually matters
Well yeah, the last time he got a hit in that kind of situation was back in May of last year
Yamamoto's about the only one pulling his weight
And he's at least playing defense too, even if it's just first base
Way better, yeah
People just have a bad impression of him because his last game yesterday was rough
He really needs to pick one role soon or he's going to end up with a career-ending injury
Even with the two-way thing, he's not playing defense, so it's not really twice the work, and he's not even pitching full-time either
A shortstop playing every inning is doing more work than that
Normal players aren't full-time DH, you know
Also, he's only pitched the qualifying number of innings once in his career, so how is that twice the work of a normal player?
He barely pitches at all, he's basically just a DH
*Note: he's a pitcher currently in rehab
Nah, that's just aging, can't fix that
His declining eyesight was being covered for by AI (video/data analysis support) the past few years, so the drop-off stayed gradual
The moment he lost that crutch, this is what happened, so don't expect much
It's only going to keep declining from here, so this is basically the beginning of the end
Especially since he's a pure power guy, not a technician like Ichiro who could hold off decline
Even a normal player focusing on just one role has to start changing their approach to fight off aging at this point
Ichiro also said his eyesight kept getting worse, so it's really just a difference in effort
Once the real decline kicked in for this guy, going on about how good hot dogs are, give me a break (reference to an Ohtani comment widely mocked online as a sign he'd lost his edge)
Ichiro, a technician?
All he did was turn mishits into infield singles with his speed, that's not skill
probably going to report this as 'Ohtani reached base twice but the team narrowly lost' anyway
Well, that's not wrong though
It's thanks to Ohtani that they got this close to a three-peat in the first place
Smith's the real disaster
Batting .053 with a .153 OPS near the top of the order isn't something you can excuse just because he's a catcher
The way you say that makes it sound like Ohtani's performance is excusable
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Shohei Ohtani is a two-way player who both pitches and hits, and on days he isn’t scheduled to pitch he usually plays as a designated hitter without taking the field on defense. Because of this, the view that he’s “doing twice the work of a normal player” and the view that “since he doesn’t play defense, his workload is actually lighter than a position player’s” are hard to reconcile, and the thread split depending on which assumption commenters started from. The point that he hasn’t been coming through in close, late-game situations has been a recurring topic all season, with some commenters backing their arguments using batting statistics. Meanwhile, comparisons were also drawn to Munetaka Murakami and catcher Will Smith, who struggled in the same game, broadening the discussion to who on the team was really responsible for the slump. There were also voices worried about his age and decline, but nothing in this thread offers solid grounds for predicting his future performance with any certainty.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Live Broadcast General) thread “[Sad News] Shohei Ohtani Fails Again in a Spot Where We Needed Him to Deliver Late in the Game lolololololol“.
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