There’s no worse feeling for a pitcher than making a perfect pitch and still giving up a hit. Astros starter Hunter Brown knows all about that.
In the third inning of Monday night’s game against the Angels, Brown had a 1–2 count on Shohei Ohtani and threw him an excellent backdoor curveball that barely caught the outside part of the strike zone. Ohtani, protecting the plate with two strikes, offered at the tough pitch.
He stuck his butt way out and extended his arms as far as they would go to reach the outside pitch. Baseball fans have seen swings like that plenty of times. Almost always, they result in weak contact. Any other hitter would have grounded into an inning-ending double play.
