He left his lone start in that span early with hand cramps, but pitched four scoreless innings before departing. 405/.542/.649, even better than his seasonal line. He’s started at DH for all 11 games of the stretch and has hit a ludicrous. What’s gone wrong for the Angels? Well, one thing’s for sure: it’s not Shohei Ohtani. Things are decidedly non-magical in the land of Disney these days. That’s a seasonal low for their chances of making the postseason. After their playoff odds reached 22.7% on July 27, the Halos have crashed down to 1.3% in short order. Since trading for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López to lean fully into this year, they’ve gone 2-9, slipping back below. Then, a classic mid-story twist: they ripped off an 8-1 run in the latter half of July and decided to go for it one last time. The previous best player in the game was out with injury, and the ship was taking on water.

They were down and out, deciding whether they could stomach trading the best player in the game before losing him forever. Over in near near-ish the center of American film-making, it looked like the Angels were setting up for another iteration of that classic arc. They don’t call it a Hollywood ending for nothing people love it when the hero wins before the credits roll.

Perfect player time shift