I need someone to top to, but myself is never enough.

I'm the worst kind of needy, trying to find answers on the inside of a coffee cup.

The only thing I know for sure is that I spend too much on coffee.

Too much time has set myself, never trusting anyone else and it's finally catching up to me.

Hello and welcome to episode 1714 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Vandgraphs presented by our Patreon supporters.

I am Belmintberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Vandgraphs. Hello, Meg.

Hello.

Well, I saw Tuweotani in the flesh and Meg didn't go great.

I am so sorry that our experiences of this were so dramatically different.

Not because I don't deserve a good Otani time, but because you so deserve a good Otani time.

And it was, I don't know, man, in addition to Otani, it seemed like it was very hot there and sticky.

Not the ball, might you, but the air and I personally hate to be sticky.

So it seemed not the best. I'm very sorry.

It was far from the best.

Yeah, there are worse things in the world than being disappointed by a baseball game.

But this was not one of the better baseball games.

So if we're going to talk about Otani's best of times, we must also acknowledge the worst of times.

Perhaps he flew too close to the sun, and maybe this was bound to happen.

The good news is that he's home or a few times since the last time we talked about him.

But the bad news is that he had the worst start of his career on Wednesday.

He allowed seven earned runs in two thirds of an inning.

So he flew out to lead off the game in his first at bat in the top of the inning.

...