Cleveland @ Los Angeles preview
Angel Stadium of Anaheim
Last Meeting ( May 17, 2021 ) Cleveland 4, LA Angels 7
Zach Plesac will start for the Cleveland Indians Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif., and the right-hander is looking forward to facing baseball's top home run hitter.
The Angels' Shohei Ohtani hit his 13th home run of the season on Monday night, but Plesac (3-3, 3.56 ERA) nevertheless is excited about going up against the two-way player, who is scheduled to pitch on Wednesday.
"I just think about all the fun he's probably having, showing up to the field every day, being able to play somewhere, on the mound or in the field or in the lineup," Plesac said. "I'm sure he's having a lot of fun. It's amazing to see the things he's been able to accomplish on the mound and on the field. It's just awesome. I'm excited to watch him play, and I'm excited to face up with him."
Plesac himself was a two-way player in college at Ball State University and asked if he could play the field when he was in the minor leagues.
"There was a time in the minor leagues when I told (current Indians assistant pitching coach Ruben Niebla) that I wanted to play the field," Plesac said. "He just let me know, ‘Pitching's the route for you, this is your gift.' But yeah, at the end of the day, it's just a lot of fun. It'd be a lot of fun to show up to the field and play both sides."
Plesac has faced the Angels just once in his career, throwing a four-hit shutout on Sept. 10, 2019 at Angel Stadium, the only shutout in his major league career. In that game, Ohtani went 0-for-2 with a walk.
Left-hander Andrew Heaney (1-3, 4.75 ERA) will start for Los Angeles, but which Heaney shows up is anybody's guess. Heaney has made three starts in which he allowed one run or fewer, totaling 29 strikeouts in those three games. But he's also had a couple starts in which he's given up five or more runs.
That includes his most recent start, when he was tagged for five runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings in a loss to Houston last Wednesday.
Angels center fielder Mike Trout's availability for the game is questionable pending an evaluation Tuesday. Trout suffered a strained right calf muscle in the first inning of Monday's game.
Trout missed three games in 2019 because of a strained right calf.
"I saw nothing," Angels manager Joe Maddon said of Trout's injury. "I looked up and he was kind of limping to the third base bag. They're still doing an evaluation, but that was kind of innocuous, just all of a sudden he was limping and I have no idea why."
--Field Level Media