One of the most highly anticipated at-bats in baseball history happened during the World Baseball Classic in March between Los Angeles Angels teammates Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani struck out the three-time MVP for the final out in the championship game, securing a WBC title for Japan over Trout and the United States.

Three months after the battle, Mookie Betts, who hit before Trout in that game, asked Trout about his mindset heading into the at-bat on his podcast On Base.

“I gotta go deep here,” Trout said. “I think it might’ve messed me up because it took me out of my approach but there was one thing on my mind, I was trying to take him deep. There’s no other explanation”

Trout contends that he “missed some pitches I should’ve hit,” but no one faults him for going down swinging to the phenom that is Shohei Ohtani. He said that they never faced each other before, not even in live batting practice with the Angels.

Trout claims there is one time in his career he went into an at-bat or a certain pitch with the mindset of hitting a home run and it actually happened. He was a home run shy of the cycle with the Angels in a May game in 2013 and went yard to become the youngest player in American League history to hit for the cycle.

It seemed like a pipedream for baseball fans to see Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, arguably the two best players on the planet, face each other while they were still teammates with the Angels. It happened and it seems that Trout is content with the way things unfolded.