The Ohtani Day that never was: Royals dish on Postponement Heard 'Round the World

It always hurts, that dreaded announcement. This one killed. First pitch was only 20 minutes away.

Foolishly, even as an unseasonably cold Kansas City morning gave way to an unseasonably cold Kansas City afternoon, we believed, unswayed by the rain, wind, snow, and general unpleasantness that had already spoiled Sundays in Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota, and Detroit.

The weather be damned, Ohtani Day was going to happen.

And then, like a fastball to the ribs, bam:

On social media, in living rooms, even for some in the stands at Kauffman Stadium, frigid as it was, the devastation was palpable. And understandably.

In his first big-league start - on the mound, that is - Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Angels' two-way phenom, was magnanimous, surrendering three runs over six innings. He allowed three hits. He issued one walk. He even allowed a home run, a booming, 392-foot shot to Matt Chapman that came on an iffy breaking ball. Disingenuous as it was, he allowed for the possibility that he is of this earth, one of us.

In the two weeks since, he has thoroughly disabused us of that notion.

Last Sunday, Ohtani turned in an all-timer in his pitching debut at Angel Stadium, carving up the Oakland Athletics and devouring them with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. He flirted with a perfect game, retiring the first 19 batters he faced before Marcus Semien spoiled his shot at history, and finished his day with a dozen strikeouts over seven sublimely scoreless innings. In the days preceding that masterpiece, Ohtani - tireless in his efforts to undermine baseball's positional binary - went yard in three straight starts at designated hitter. In the days that followed, he continued to rake.

On Thursday, in the opener of an ostensible four-game set with the Kansas City Royals, Ohtani - starting at DH and batting in his then-customary, always-untenable No. 8 spot - recorded two notable MLB firsts, notching his first career triple, a bases-clearing laser into the right-center gap, and receiving his first career intentional walk in a 7-1 victory. The following night, Ohtani, back at DH, vindicated his manager's decision to bump him up to the seventh spot in the batting order, finishing 2-for-4 with a double while also stroking a key single in his club's eighth-inning rally, and then coming around to score the winning run in a come-from-behind, 5-4 triumph.

When Sunday, his day, arrived again, Ohtani was rocking a 1.191 OPS through 33 plate appearances - good for an eye-popping 231 wRC+, tops in the bigs among those with at least 30 trips to the plate - to go along with a 2.08 ERA (1.75 FIP) and 0.46 WHIP across two starts. So far, by wins above replacement, only a handful of players have been more valuable than Ohtani, who would likely sit atop the WAR leaderboard right now if he were playing as much as he'd like to. Small-sample caveats be damned, the kid has more than sufficiently greased the gears of the hype machine, and while everything he does on a baseball diamond deserves a robust audience, his weekly start already belongs alongside "Game of Thrones" and "Barry" in the pantheon of Sunday appointment viewing.

And, thanks to weather, it didn't happen. Bummer, right?

Well, in the home clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium, that sentiment was hardly unanimous. They're not fans, after all. But the Royals did all agree on a couple things. First, it was just too darn lousy out to play baseball on Sunday. Second, Ohtani made a strong first impression as a hitter, and it would've been a lot of fun to step in against him had the weather cooperated.

"Anytime you get to face a guy who's that caliber a player, (with) that reputation, obviously you want to go do that," Mike Moustakas, the Royals' All-Star third baseman, told theScore on Monday. "But I think for the way the situation was, I think it was best for everybody involved that we didn't end up playing the game. It was too cold. Too many injuries could've happened and it's just not worth going out there and (having) somebody getting hit, or somebody pulling a muscle just because it's so cold."

Fair enough. And about that first impression?

"Really impressed," Moustakas said. "He's got great discipline at the plate, a great eye for the zone. Obviously, he's got tremendous power, tremendous bat speed. What really stood out to me was his speed. I didn't know he was that fast, as fast as he is. He's just a phenomenal baseball player."

Whit Merrifield, who was slated to bat second, in front of Moustakas, wasn't quite as generous in his appraisal of Ohtani. But he gave credit where it was due.

"He had a good series against us," Merrifield said. "He squared a couple balls up. He's a big dude with a pretty good swing."

And, like Moustakas, Merrifield had been stoked for the chance to face him. You know, to see what all the hype is about.

"I mean, you can watch film on a guy but you don't really know what (he) looks like until you face him, so I was looking forward it," Merrifield said " ... (But) it was way too miserable to play."

Even those already somewhat familiar with him wanted a taste of Ohtani, who will now start Tuesday night in Anaheim against the Boston Red Sox.

"I had seen him pitch in Japan when we went for that postseason tour (in 2014) and he didn't disappoint, so I was looking forward to facing him," said Drew Butera, the Royals' veteran catcher.

Moreover, when Butera and a gaggle of big-league stars headed to Japan a few years back for a five-game exhibition series against the country's vaunted national team, he didn't get a chance to see Ohtani swing it. This past weekend, he did.

"Good swing," Butera remarked. "(He) stayed on some pitches really well, and made some adjustments. I hadn't seen a lot of him, offensively, just some small video during spring training and during the season, so I didn't really know what to expect just from the small sample size but I was impressed with his ability, his power. I was actually really impressed with his speed, too. I didn't know he could run like that."

To summarize: Ohtani can really hit, and he can really run, per the Royals' amateur scouts. And, according to left-hander Danny Duffy, the club's de facto ace, Ohtani has elite stuff, as well. And it would've been cool to see his teammates get after it. Alas.

"I've seen a lot of people with really good stuff and he's obviously got elite stuff, and anytime you see an electric fastball like that with the offspeed that he has, obviously you're going to be front and center when you can see something like that," Duffy said. "To watch our lineup compete against that kind of talent would be a lot of fun.

"But we'll see him down the road. He's going to be around a long time."