Rosenthal: With Shohei Ohtani vs. Mike Trout, WBC scripts the perfect ending as Japan beats USA

MIAMI, FLORIDA - MARCH 21: Shohei Ohtani #16 of Team Japan reacts after the final out of the World Baseball Classic Championship defeating Team USA 3-2 at loanDepot park on March 21, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Eric Espada/Getty Images)
By Ken Rosenthal
Mar 22, 2023

MIAMI – The script, everyone kept talking about the script. For the last month and a half, Mike Trout heard all about how it should play out. Him in the batter’s box. Shohei Ohtani on the mound. The perfect matchup for the World Baseball Classic. And, once the USA and Japan reached the final, the perfect ending.

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The script was what fans wanted, sure. But in sports, the script only works out well for one side. So when it was over, after Ohtani struck out Trout and Japan beat the USA, 3-2, some of the U.S. players had a few choice words about the script. It wasn’t their happy ending, you know?

Paul Goldschmidt, who was on deck when Trout made the final out: “Trout and I going back-to-back and (Ryan) Pressly closing it out would have been better.”

Trea Turner, referencing pinch-hitter Jeff McNeil’s walk to lead off the ninth: “I was hoping when Jeff got on base, if Mike hit a two-run homer to win the game, that everyone was going to go bananas, that the world was going to end.”

Trout himself: “It sucks it didn’t go the way I wanted it to.”

The U.S. players were not ungracious in defeat; quite the contrary. To a man, they spoke glowingly of their WBC experiences, praised the skill of their Japanese opponents. But if they were content, they would not be who they are. The best players in the world aren’t looking to author Hollywood endings. No, they’re just burning to compete.

That is what Trout vs. Ohtani was all about, what the WBC was all about, what sports are at their very essence.

The two best players in the world, who happen to be teammates with the perennially disappointing Angels, created a forever moment Tuesday night. Part of it, of course, was the script, the imagined showdown coming to fruition. The end, though, was far more dramatic than a first-pitch pop-up would have been. The lasting memory will be of how Trout and Ohtani fought, challenging each other’s mastery of the sport.

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It was Ali-Frazier in the batter’s box.

Trout conceded, “He won Round One.”

 Mike Trout strikes out to end the game. (Megan Briggs / Getty Images)

Prior to the game, Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama gave no indication of how he planned to use Ohtani or the other starter who preceded him in relief, Yu Darvish. Kuriyama, in his genial way, hemmed and hawed about how he needed to communicate with both pitchers, but left open the possibility both could take the mound.

The manager’s decision to start left-hander Shota Imanaga only added to the intrigue surrounding Japan’s pitching, considering four of the game’s best right-handed sluggers were at the top of the U.S. lineup. But Imanaga had reverse splits and a fastball with carry the Team USA hitters likened to Max Fried’s. Darvish, meanwhile, had poor numbers against Trout, Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, the Americans’ 2-3-4. When Imanaga allowed only one run in his two innings, on Turner’s tournament-leading fifth homer, the plan began to take shape.

Four relievers, each with nasty, distinct repertoires, bridged the gap from Imanaga to Darvish and Ohtani, combining for five scoreless innings. Ohtani twice jogged out to the bullpen after the fifth, only to return to the dugout when his spot in the lineup neared. Knowing when to warm him up was tricky, considering he also was Japan’s DH. But as the drama built, Kuriyama’s desired endgame became clear: Darvish for the eighth, Ohtani for the ninth.

A fiercely competitive, 10-pitch at-bat between Darvish and Kyle Schwarber ended in a home run, bringing Team USA to within one run. Ohtani, by that point, was in the clear, as far as being able to pitch. His last at-bat turned out to be in the seventh. He didn’t come close to hitting in the eighth, and he told me in his postgame interview on FS1 that a replay at the end of the inning gave him time to walk slowly to the mound.

The last time he had closed was in 2016, in a playoff game while he was still pitching in Japan. Fox’s John Smoltz, a Hall of Fame pitcher, warned on the broadcast that Ohtani might be overly amped. He sure looked that way as he sprayed fastballs warming up, and as he started the ninth by walking McNeil.

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Three former MVPs, Mookie Betts, Trout and Goldschmidt, were Team USA’s next hitters. The U.S. rally, however, faded after only two pitches. Ohtani retired Betts on a 4-6-3 double play, so as Trout stepped to the plate, he represented both the final out and tying run.

“When we got that double play, I saw (right fielder Kensuke) Kondoh kind of celebrating,” Japan left fielder Lars Nootbaar said. “I was sitting in left field, going, ‘Listen, good double play, but we’ve got Mike Trout coming up to the plate right now. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Virtually everyone in the sellout crowd of 36,098 stood as the showdown between Ohtani and Trout commenced. Team USA manager Mark DeRosa saw Trout take a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. Trout looked out at Ohtani, apparently without much of an acknowledgment in return.

“He’s a competitor, man,” Trout said. “That’s why he’s the best.”

Ohtani’s first pitch, an 88-mph slider, was a ball. He would later say on MLB Network that the way Trout took the pitch indicated to him that the slugger was anticipating something soft. Ohtani seized the moment, and began attacking with his fastball.

Trout swung through 100 mph, nodding to the mound as if to say, “good pitch.” Ohtani then missed just outside with 100, a difficult pitch for Trout to lay off, only to come back with a better-located 99. Trout swung through that pitch, too. But when Ohtani skipped a low 101-mph heater past catcher Yuhei Nakamura, the count ran to 3-2.

Ohtani had thrown four straight fastballs. Trout had not shown he could handle the heat. Arenado surmised another fastball was coming, because Ohtani would not want to walk a second hitter in the inning. Instead, Ohtani threw a gorgeous, sweeping slider Trout flailed at for strike three.

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“Great pitch,” Arenado said. “If Mike Trout’s not hitting it, I don’t think anybody else is.”

Ohtani screamed in celebration as he bounded off the mound, chucking his cap and glove. How rare was it for Trout to swing and miss three times in a single at-bat? Well, according to Codify Baseball, he has done it only 24 times in 6,174 career major-league plate appearances.

Though Trout didn’t say it, Team USA coach Michael Young pointed to a factor many teams mentioned throughout the tournament: That hitters are still in the middle of spring training, fine-tuning their swings for the regular season.

“I would love for Trouty not to have been in mid-March so he could have been super, super dialed in,” Young said.

Wait, wasn’t Ohtani in mid-March, too?

“Of course, but his stuff is ripping for mid-March,” Young said. “He’s hitting 101.”

Some numbers:

Ohtani had the hardest-hit ball of the WBC, 118.7 mph. He tied for the longest homer, 448 feet, and fastest-thrown pitch, 102 mph. For good measure, when he beat out an infield single in the seventh, Statcast measured his speed as borderline elite.

Some more numbers:

As a hitter, Ohtani batted 435/.606/.739 in the tournament, with four doubles, a home run and eight RBIs. As a pitcher, he produced a 1.86 ERA with 11 strikeouts in 9 2/3 innings. No one pulled an Aaron Judge and dared challenge him for MVP.

“I stopped pitching when I was 13 years old because I wasn’t good anymore,” Young said. “F—— guy does both in the big leagues.”

Or, as DeRosa put it, “What he’s doing in the game is what probably 90 percent of the guys in that clubhouse did in Little League or in youth tournaments, and he’s able to pull it off on the biggest stages.”

And yet, Ohtani also impressed in other ways. At 28, entering his sixth major-league season, he is starting to show his competitive edge and leadership ability in a more outward manner.

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During batting practice, Ohtani again hit outdoors Tuesday, something he almost never does during the regular season, preferring to focus on his mechanics in the batting cage rather than home runs. The day before, he chose to “send a little message” to Team Mexico with his jaw-dropping power display. He did the same thing before the final against Team USA.

“Guy’s hitting the scoreboard in batting practice,” Arenado said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Ohtani delivered a different, more vocal message to his teammates in the clubhouse prior to the game. Fearing Japan’s younger players, in particular, might be intimidated by the U.S. stars, he urged the team to take an aggressive approach.

“Let’s stop admiring them,” Ohtani said. “…If you admire them, you can’t surpass them. We came to surpass them, to reach the top. For one day, let’s throw away our admiration for them and just think about winning.”

Japan did, delivering a typically efficient and immaculate performance. And in the end, everything fell into place for Ohtani to face Trout, as if someone was indeed writing a script, the kind of tidy narrative the baseball gods almost always seem to mock.

“I was not expecting him to be literally the last batter of the game,” Ohtani said on FS1. “I thought it was a possibility but I can’t believe he was the last batter of the game.”

Team Japan first baseman Kazuma Okamoto said, “it was like a Manga, like a comic book,” only there was one difference.

In comic books, the characters are fictional. In the final sequence of the WBC, they could not have been more real.

(Top photo: Eric Espada / Getty Images)

Ken Rosenthal is the senior baseball writer for The Athletic who has spent nearly 35 years covering the major leagues. In addition, Ken is a broadcaster and regular contributor to Fox Sports' MLB telecasts. He's also won Emmy Awards in 2015 and 2016 for his TV reporting. Follow Ken on Twitter @Ken_Rosenthal