Shohei Ohtani Threatens Mike Trout, But is the New Babe Ruth a Real Danger to the Astros?

Mike Trout is widely considered the best player in baseball (though Jose Altuve presents a worthy counter argument) — and he only seems to be getting better. Trout even suddenly leads the Major Leagues in home runs. But they haven’t come here for him.

No, the reporters camped around the visitors locker room at Minute Maid Park are seeking buzzier game.

They want Shohei Ohtani, the biggest two-way star in baseball since Babe Ruth, the Japanese star who’s defied all the doubters to be game-changing force on both the mound and in the batter’s box. Ohtani is the biggest curiosity in all of sports, the man who’s essentially turned Mike Trout into the other guy.

Trout largely comes and goes from his corner locker with little fuss Monday afternoon, the eve of another Ohtani start, which means another big night for baseball. In contrast, Ohtani’s every move is documented and analyzed. When the 23-year-old puts his glove on his head for a few moments, it’s destined to become the “color” of a horde of the Ohtani features that need to be written on this day.

When Ohtanti scrolls through his phone later, alone at his locker, it’s tempting to cast it as his stranger in a strange land moment. Except that every Major League Baseball player — and almost every human in the developed world these days for that matter — spends plenty of time by themselves, looking at things on their phone.

It is a global world — and Ohtani is only different when he steps onto the field and starts using his crazy talent.

Minute Maid Park will be electric on a Tuesday night in late April because Ohtani will be starting, taking on the world champs. The Houston Rockets just put up a 50-point quarter in the NBA playoffs, but the Houston Astros’ home will be the place to be. That’s the power of Ohtani.

It is already an event when he pitches — even if he’ll be hard pressed to match the numbers Astros right-hander Gerrit Cole amassed in a 2-0 loss on Monday night. It takes more than talent to become a phenomenon. Think Fernandomania in 1981. Doc Gooden in 1985. Pedro Martinez in 2000.

There’s a reason an Ohtani autograph baseball card is already going for $60,000 while you can get a Gerrit Cole rookie card for a bargain $149.99. Ohtani has that extra star power required — he just needs to keep pitching (and slugging) up to the hype.

This is how a Tuesday night in April becomes a heavyweight fight. You can bet the proud, deadly Astros hitters are pumped to get their first shot at Ohtani. No team in baseball lives more for the big moment than Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman and company. Now, they get to go against the biggest story in baseball with the Angels (15-8) having moved within a half game of the first-place Astros (16-8) in the American League West for added drama.

This start looms every bit as potentially perilous to Ohtani Mania as the matchup with the Red Sox last week that left him leaving the mound after only two innings, having given up four runs while developing an annoying blister. Even if Ohtani himself doesn’t seem to be sweating it.

At least as much as anyone can tell. Ohtani largely only talks on days he pitches. He certainly wasn’t giving any interviews on Monday night.

So reporters shuffle their feet on the green and yellow carpet in the visitors locker room that somehow looks like it could have come over from the Astrodome. Or at least, the basement of one of the kids in Stranger Things.

Want insights? Ohtani is confident enough to have pink shower shoes in his locker.

Ohtani, the Mystery

Nobody may really know anybody, but nobody really knows Shohei Ohtani. Even when he does talk it’s in mundane soundbites filtered through his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. (Mizuhara gets his own locker next to Ohtani’s even on the road — and he’s one of the closest one-man entourages you’ll ever see.)

Then again, a little mystique and aura never hurt a phenomenon.

“I’m certainly interested to see him,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch says of Ohtani. “But we have to find a way to beat him.

“I think everybody is intrigued… Similar to any player that comes into this league, certainly he has fanfare and international notoriety. There’s intrigue to check him out and see what he’s got against our guys.”

Count Altuve among the impressed. “I hear he’s good,” Altuve says. “He throws a 100.”

Ohtani has hit triple digits on the radar gun in three straight starts, the first three starts of his career. He even hit it on a few pitches in that abbreviated dud of a start against Boston. This 6-foot-4, 203-pound man’s power isn’t so quiet.

Let the super game begin. It’s April, but all of baseball is on Ohtani time now.