It’s always fun to see athletes forced to play out of position, but there was nothing quite like seeing A’s catcher Jhonny Pereda take the mound to pitch to Shohei Ohtani. Arguably the greatest player in baseball simply had no answers to to Pereda’s stuff in one of the most staggeringly weird at bats of the year.
Shohei Ohtani struck out by catcher in MLB’s funniest at-bat of the season
Shoehei was not prepared for this one.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Scorching the gun with pitches in the 60s, Pereda’s bizarre mechanics set up Ohtani perfectly to bite on an 89 mph fastball high to strike out. The crowd was laughing at the whole thing, even considering they were playing in Los Angeles — but that’s to be expected when you’re killing an opponent like the Dodgers were.
By the time Pereda took the mound the home team was already winning 17-2, which turned the MLB game into a glorified Savannah Bananas affair. Not only was Pereda’s pitching both hilarious and effective, but I love his little backwards trot off the mound on every pitch, as if he’s terrified that Shoehei is going to line drive it back at his face. That’s just self preservation.
The only person who didn’t have fun with this was Ohtani, ever the competitor, who just looked enraged about the whole thing, even after hitting two home runs in the game.
The Dodgers went on to win 19-2, but we’ll always have this sequence as a memory.
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