Shohei Ohtani wasn’t sure what happened to the ball he hit into right field Saturday night at Angel Stadium.
Amidst the confusion, the two-way Dodger star was only focused.
“I just kept running,” he said in a postgame interview with an interpreter.
Good thing, too.
In the top of the eighth inning of the Dodger’s 15-2 rout of the Angels, Ohtani hit a Little League home run — a triple he hit on an error — with the help of a rare application of one of MLB’s universal ballpark rules.
On the play, Ohtani’s 89.7 mph line drive landed deep in the right field corner, took one big hop just inside the foul line, and rolled off the low wall in the foul area at Angel Stadium.
Only, the ball never really left the field of play.
Instead, it hit the protective net that reached nearly down the wrong side of right field (a new addition to Angel Stadium this year) and bounced back onto the field as Ohtani rounded the bases.
By the time right fielder Jo Adell brought it back — after raising his arms, apparently thinking the ball should have been dead — Ohtani had already pulled into third base.
Things only got worse from there for the Angels. Adell shot the relay past two men who were standing on the edge of the field. With no one else in position to back it up, the ball hurtled toward the mound as Ohtani raced home to score without being thrown out.
“It’s a Little League home game,” manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “It was good to see him busy.”
“I turned again [saw] Shohei was coming home, and I was like, ‘What happened?'” added Alex Call, one of two base runners to score in the game, “I didn’t find out until later. But I think, yes, football is played there.”
As soon as Ohtani slid to the plate, however, the Angels began pleading with the umpires about the impact of the protective netting. Manager Kurt Suzuki even disputed the decision after exiting the dugout, explaining later that “we thought maybe a fan would have it” behind the screen.
“That was tough, obviously,” he said in his post-match press conference. “Before the nets [installed] down the line, that ball bounces off the sticks and it’s two bases.”
Instead, video replays confirmed the original call.
And in the midst of all the chaos, some of the universal rules that apply to all MLB ballparks were laid bare:
“A live ball (batted, thrown or otherwise) that hits any screen or protective net placed on the field facing a wall or post (eg, a backstop or protective net following the first or third base line) and returns to the field is live and in play,” according to the rules section on the MLB website.
“The net, if it is hit, it is played, it was not a question,” said Roberts. “I didn’t really know what they were challenging, but no, we weren’t worried about that.”
