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Watch Shohei Ohtani unleash a totally unfair slider

By Eric Chesterton

As far as baseball phrases go, "wipeout slider" provides one of the most accurate mental images of the event it refers to. While the term is often overused to refer to just about any slider that produces a swinging strikeout, Nippon-Ham Fighters pitcher Shohei Ohtani (who will reportedly be posted for potential MLB teams this winter) showed Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles' outfielder Hiroaki Shimauchi a true wipeout slider:

When a slider causes a hitter to literally wipe out, that's a clear sign that it is a wipeout slider worthy of the name.
But that tutorial in breaking pitches wasn't all Ohtani brought to Tuesday's matchup. He also came just one kilometer per hour shy of tying his own NPB record for fastest pitch:

With fast pitches and nasty breaking pitches present and accounted for, the only thing missing in this game from the Ohtani triple crown was a home run.

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