Kikuchi stands tall against Ohtani, but bats can't follow suit

TORONTO -- Facing Shohei Ohtani will always mean more to the Blue Jays after The Great Heartbreak, but this runs deeper for Yusei Kikuchi.

Kikuchi and Ohtani both attended Hanamaki Higashi High School in the Iwate Prefecture of Japan. If you don’t run into traffic, you can drive south from Kikuchi’s hometown of Morioka and reach Ohtani’s hometown of Oshu in just under an hour.

When the two faced one another for the first time in Major League Baseball on June 2, 2019, and Ohtani hit a home run, Mike Trout called it “the most excited I've seen him on a homer.” That day, Ohtani said the only person prouder than him would be Hiroshi Sasaki, the man who coached them both in high school. The two hold a deep respect for one another and what this means to their country, home to such a wonderful baseball culture.

That’s why in Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Dodgers, Kikuchi had a little extra on him.

In Ohtani’s first trip to the plate, Kikuchi threw his hardest pitch of the season (97.9 mph), but that mark only lasted until Ohtani’s next at-bat. That's when Kikuchi ripped a 98.2 mph fastball, tied for the fourth-hardest pitch of his MLB career. But Ohtani had to one-up his countryman.

He blasted a single through the right side of the Blue Jays’ infield on that pitch with the hardest exit velocity he’s recorded in his big league career (119.2 mph).

Anything you can do, I can do better.

“Of course there was a little extra adrenaline when I faced him,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “I think I threw my best fastball this year, but the exit velocity off his bat came out pretty good, as well. He got the best of me there, but I was glad I was able to get him out after that.”

Kikuchi still had his moment. By the time Ohtani strolled through the boos to reach the batter’s box for the third time, Kikuchi had him cranked up, looking for that top-end velocity. With two strikes, Kikuchi threw Ohtani a curveball and caught him being entirely too eager for a strikeout. He was well out in front, and before Ohtani even finished his swing, his helmet was bouncing on the ground behind him.

There’s only one Ohtani on this planet, but Kikuchi is still one of Japan’s finest pitchers and off to an excellent start this season -- even if this outing against the Dodgers was a speedbump, as he allowed four runs on nine hits over six innings. His ERA still sits at a shiny 2.94.

“It was tough facing him, especially because there was a runner on each time I faced him, so that made it that much more difficult,” Kikuchi said. “He’s getting better and better every year. My main focus in the matchup with him was not to give up the big hit or a home run.”

These two games have been a reality check for the Blue Jays, who are stuck in a run of five consecutive losses now after three straight one-run losses to end their series against the Royals. This is what it looks like when the highest-scoring offense in the Majors comes to town. If the Blue Jays want to contend for a World Series, this is what they’ll eventually be up against, and the early comparisons have been humbling.

In these five losses, Toronto has scored just nine runs. The individual game outputs are two, two, one, two and two. That’s just not going to work.

“If you look at the last five in a vacuum, it hasn’t been going our way,” manager John Schneider said. “But before that, you lose sight of the fact that we won four series in a row, we were grinding out starters and still not getting a big hit. It gets a bit magnified right now, but I’m confident it will turn.”

Schneider has been optimistic, and what other choice does he have? George Springer sat out Saturday’s game for a regular day of rest, but his top three of Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette have all underperformed.

This offense is asking its pitchers to be perfect. Kikuchi wanted to badly to stop this streak, saying after the game that he “felt bad” for even giving up the first run.

Already facing the pressure of Ohtani -- which means so much to Kikuchi -- and a lineup that looks like its own All-Star team, that’s too much to ask.