Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Henry Davis has two claims to fame. First and foremost, he was the No. 1 pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, and that's pretty cool. Only 59 players in history can say they were the top pick in baseball's amateur draft.
And second, Henry became the first player to take Los Angeles Angels wunderkind Shohei Ohtani deep twice in the same game Friday night (GameTracker), an 8-5 win for Ohtani and the Angels. The two solo home runs are the third and fourth homers of Davis' MLB career and Friday was just his 27th career big league game. Here are his two blasts against Ohtani:
That's impressive power. Davis pulled the first homer to left field and blasted the second to right-center, over the big wall. That would have been a home run with the old Angel Stadium dimensions, before they lowered the home run line to the top of the outfield wall.
Only six other players have hit multiple home runs against Ohtani: Matt Chapman, Jarred Kelenic, Nathaniel Lowe, Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander and George Springer. They've all hit exactly two homers against Ohtani, but never more than one in a game. Only Davis has done that. Ohtani made his 82nd career MLB start Friday.
The Pirates tagged Ohtani for four homers Friday -- Ji-Man Choi and Jack Suwinski also took him deep -- the most he's ever allowed in an MLB game. He had previously allowed two home runs in a game 15 times, and never three homers in a game. The world's best and coolest player is no match for the Pirates, I suppose.
Ohtani allowed five runs in 6 1/3 innings Friday. It is the third straight start he's allowed five runs, giving him a 3.71 ERA on the season. That is still quite good, though it's well below Ohtani's Cy Young caliber performance the last two seasons. For what it's worth, he's been dealing with a cracked nail and blister in recent weeks.
Davis, 23, made his MLB debut on June 19. He took a .275/.377/.385 batting line into Friday's game. Our R.J. Anderson ranked Davis the No. 48 prospect in baseball coming into the season, noting his "well-above-average power potential."
