Angels To ‘Roll The Dice’ With Shohei Ohtani For Rest Of Season

The Angles are on the bubble in the American League wild-card race, but they aren’t willing to be sellers at the Major League Baseball trade deadline.

General manager Perry Minasian confirmed Los Angeles will not trade Shohei Ohtani before the Aug. 1 deadline despite reported interest from multiple teams. The Angels were four games out in the wild-card race heading into their doubleheader Thursday, and with the reported acquisition of Lucas Giolito from the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles is in win-now mode.

“We’re going to roll the dice and see what happens,” Minasian told reporters, per ESPN.

Minasian added: “I never went up to Shohei and said, ‘Hey, we’re not trading you.’ Think I made it pretty clear the last time we talked, I think, that he wasn’t going anywhere. I don’t know if anybody believed me.”

Ohtani reportedly wanted to play out the rest of his contract in Los Angeles before he enters free agency in 2024. The Angels will have the rest of the 2023 season to convince the two-way superstar to stay and making the postseason could help.

“I love Shohei Ohtani. He comes in, prepares, works, goes out and performs on a nightly basis. Obviously, does both (hitting and pitching). He’s a great teammate. He takes this really seriously. He eats it. He sleeps it.

“He’s somebody that we would love to have going forward.”

Ohtani went 0-for-5 in the first game of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, but he started the matchup and threw his first career complete-game shutout.