51�Թ�

Note: Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe left the game after being hit in the head on a backswing during the eighth inning, Washington said.

“Did you know you have too big a backswing on your volleys?”

In the fifth inning, after Andy Pages reached on a double for the second time in the game, Skenes struck out Shohei Ohtani on a full-count curveball that sent the Dodgers star into a twisting, off-balance backswing and had Pirates catcher Henry Davis pumping his fist toward the mound in celebration.

Before Thursday’s start in the United Arab Emirates, his first tournament since last month’s Alfred Dunhill Championship, he revealed that he has spent the period in a studio working on his backswing.

Being “young and foolish,” he never got the knee fixed until eight years later when it locked up on a backswing playing golf.