Zigeunerzelt » CHICAGO (AP) — A little rain cut short Michael Kopech’s

anticipated big league debut Tuesday night. Couldn’t damper his spirits Albert Pujols Jersey , though.Eddie Rosario led the Minnesota Twins to a 5-2 victory, but not before Kopech pitched two scoreless innings in a rain-shortened start and gave Chicago a glimpse of a potentially promising future.“It was a dream come true,” Kopech said. “It was everything I thought about since I was a little kid. I was pumped.”The game was tied at 2 before Minnesota pushed across three runs in the ninth. Jake Cave was thrown out when he tried to score from second on Mitch Garver’s pinch-hit single, but Dylan Covey (4-11) issued an intentional walk to Joe Mauer before Rosario greeted Jace Fry with a tiebreaking RBI single into center field.Jorge Polanco tacked on a two-run single as Minnesota won for the sixth time in eight games. Trevor May (2-0) pitched a scoreless inning for the victory, and Taylor Rogers got three outs for his second save.The 22-year-old Kopech, one of baseball’s top pitching prospects, struck out four of the 10 batters he faced before a 52-minute rain delay. Luis Avilan came in for the White Sox when the game resumed.“I’m a little bummed out,” Kopech said. “I wanted to go a little deeper in the game. I didn’t realize my pitch count (52) was as high as it was.”Kopech figures to have plenty of chances in the future.“It wasn’t a tough decision. You worry more about the individual and the length of his career,” said bench coach Joe McEwing, who filled in for manager Rick Renteria the second straight night. “It was nothing but positives for Michael Kopech tonight.”Leaning heavily on his blazing fastball, Kopech allowed three hits, hit a batter and walked none. The right-hander was acquired in the December 2016 trade that sent ace left-hander Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox, and the White Sox are counting on him to be a prominent figure in their rebuilding project.Nicky Delmonico and Yoan Moncada homered for Chicago.Minnesota grabbed a 2-1 lead in the fourth. Logan Forsythe and Jake Cave singled off Avilan with one out. After Robbie Grossman’s RBI single against Jeanmar Gomez http://www.stlouiscardinalsteamshop.com/authentic-marcell-ozuna-jersey , Cave scored during a rundown on which Grossman was tagged out on a steal attempt.Moncada tied it at 2 with a solo drive off Gabriel Moya in the seventh.Twins right-hander Jose Berrios allowed one run and four hits in five innings. He is winless in his last three starts.“There was a lot of energy here,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “The Sox fans are very well aware of (Kopech) and the future. I thought he handled it pretty well.”MORE TESTS FOR RENTERIARenteria will return to Chicago on Wednesday and undergo further testing, according to the team. The 56-year-old Renteria experienced lightheadedness and was hospitalized before Monday night’s 8-5 victory over the Twins in Minnesota.“He sounds good,” said McEwing, who spoke with Renteria before Tuesday’s game. “He’s a very tough individual.”AUSTIN IS SORRYTwins first baseman Tyler Austin apologized for his father’s recent “embarrassing” tweets criticizing New York Yankees first baseman Greg Bird. The Yankees opted to keep Bird instead of Austin, who was traded for pitcher Lance Lynn on July 30.TRAINER’S ROOMTwins: RHP Ervin Santana (sore right middle finger) will undergo an MRI on Wednesday, but Molitor said “it’s becoming less likely he’s going to play the rest of the season.” The organization has a $1 million buyout option on his $14 million contract for next season.White Sox: INF Jose Abreu underwent outpatient surgery on his lower abdomen after complaining of discomfort upon his arrival to the ballpark. He could resume baseball-related activities in two weeks. … OF Leury Garcia will be sidelined for three to six weeks after an MRI showed a Grade 2 strain of his left hamstring. OF Ryan LaMarre was recalled from Charlotte and RHP Tyler Danish was sent to the Triple-A club.UP NEXTTwins: RHP Kyle Gibson (7-9, 3.51 ERA) will take a career 6-3 record and 2.77 ERA against the White Sox into Wednesday’s game.White Sox: LHP Carlos Rodon has been on a roll of late – 3-0 record, 1.41 ERA and .148 opponent batting average over his last six starts. Shohei Ohtani last pitched on Sept. 2. In all likelihood, he won't pitch again until 2020.Or ever, if he and the Los Angeles Angels are smart.For the time being, Ohtani and the Angels merely need to decide whether he should have Tommy John surgery, which was formally recommended to the right-hander Wednesday:Angels AngelsShohei Ohtani underwent an MRI on his right elbow earlier today. The imaging revealed new damage to his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL). Based on these findings Roger Maris Jersey , UCL reconstruction surgery is the recommended plan of care. Additional information will be provided when appropriate.Ohtani's official decision should come Friday. According toJeff Fletcher of theOrange County Register, that's when the 24-year-old will address the press.Meanwhile, there's time to ponder what's been lost. There's no ignoring the 3.31 ERA and 63 strikeouts that Ohtani racked up in his first 51.2 major league innings. Nor is there any forgetting all the 100 mph fastballs and physics-defying splitters and sliders that he threw.Under normal circumstances, it would be an utter tragedy that such a talented pitcher might be sidelined for over a year. But in this case, it's a mere bummer.Ohtani can, after all, still do this:Pictured here are the two home runs that he hit in a 9-3 win over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday night, mere hours after he was advised to have surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Those were part of a 4-for-4 night in which he also walked and stole a base.It was the ultimate reminder dude who came to Major League Baseball with a reputation as the Babe Ruth of Japan can pitchand hit.Since one of those fates is now on thin ice, Ohtani and the Angels would be wise to lean into the other one.It sucks that they've even found themselves at this fork in the road. And yet, how this might have been avoided is a question with no easy answers.As Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reported, there was a red flag planted in Ohtani's UCL before the Angels even signed him away from Japan's Nippon Ham Fighters in December 2017. But that was never an excuse for them to back off. Ohtani's upside as a two-way star was made perfectly clear by the .859 OPS and 2.52 ERA that he put up in Japan. His cheap acquisition cost (about $22.3 million) amounted to virtually zero downside to taking a shot on him.Of course, the Angels could have put the kibosh on Ohtani's rookie season as soon as his troublesome UCL put him on the disabled list in June.But nobody recommended Tommy John surgery at the time, and the Angels were very much in the American League playoff picture. If Tommy John would knock him off the mound for the rest of 2018 and all of 2019 either way Matt Carpenter Jersey , it made sense to give rest and rehabilitation a shot first.So if anybody's planning on 1.21-gigawatting their way back to the past to fix this, they'd better bring some magic UCL-healing pixie dust. Otherwise, good luck influencing a different outcome.All Ohtani and the Angels can do now is minimize the risk of his elbow going kablooey again. Unfortunately, that's all but impossible.As Russell A. Carleton of Baseball Prospectus found in 2013, nothing predicts future elbow injuries like past elbow injuries.As it is, pitching has already been reduced from a full-time job to Ohtani's side hustle.After amassing 456 innings in Nippon Professional Baseball between 2014 and 2016, ankle and elbow injuries have limited him to 77 professional innings since then.Meanwhile, his bat is flourishing.Ray Carlin/Associated PressOhtani compiled a .981 OPS and slammed 30 homers in his final two seasons in Japan. Despite looking in over his head against major league pitching in spring training, he's carried that success over to the States to a remarkable degree.Through 82 games and 279 plate appearances, Ohtani has a .946 OPS and 18 homers. The latter works out to a 36-homer pace over a 162-game season. The former equates to a 155 OPS+. That ranks 12th among rookies since integration in 1947, right between 2001 Albert Pujols and 2007 Ryan Braun.The really scary part is that Ohtani is onlynow finding his groove. He had a .907 OPS when he went on the DL in June. He has a .979 OPS since returning on July 3.This coincides with him being better at getting under the ball and generating a good launch angle:Before:7.6-degree averageAfter:17.0-degree averageThis means more balls in the air, and that's where Ohtani's raw power can do the rest. He averages 97.7 mph exit velocity on fly balls and line drives, which is higher than that of J.D. Martinez and Khris Davis.Throw in good patience (see his 10.4 walk percentage) http://www.stlouiscardinalsteamshop.com/authentic-marcell-ozuna-jersey , and you get an ideal slugger. If Ohtani were to be kept on the track he's on now full-time, there's little doubt that his future would contain one or more 40-homer seasons.Tommy John or no, it would indeed be a damn shame to let his golden right arm to go completely to waste in the future. Maybe, just maybe he could stick to hitting except for when the Angels need him to moonlight as a late-inning fireman.But since the logistics of that would be a nightmare best thing the Angels can do is groom Ohtani for right field.Depending on what happens with Kole Calhoun's 2020 option, there might be an opening out there after 2019. Ohtani's arm is perfect for the job. And as the second-fastest Angels regular behind only Mike Trout, his speed would also make him a difference-maker on defense.It would be a better story if Ohtani came back from his elbow woes and fulfilled his destiny as Major League Baseball's first two-way superstar since the Bambino himself. But he and the Angels will be pushing their luck if they keep insisting on a pitching career. Knowing that he could be one of the game's great sluggers and perhaps one of the game's great right fielders, why bother?The bat works better than the arm. Take a hint. Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.