Japan Rules The Baseball World

 

How can someone who has accomplished so many incredible feats in just the first few years of an MLB career create an even larger presence in baseball history? Easy, put on a hitting display and a clinic on the hill as his country’s pitching ace, all while leading his baseball obsessed nation to its third World Baseball Classic Championship.

 

While many around the game continue to discuss the importance of the World Baseball Classic, Shohei Ohtani led his country with a .435 batting average, a 1.345 OPS and driving in 8 runs in 7 games. For many that would be the end of the stat line, but of course we are talking about the Japanese Babe Ruth. After doing his damage at the dish Ohtani toed the rubber to the tune of a 1.86 ERA, a 0.72 WHIP and 2 wins in his 9.2 innings for the Japanese powerhouse.

 

As if we hadn’t seen enough from the amazing talent from the Los Angeles Angels, when Japan needed him most to close out a tight 3-2 championship game versus the United States, Ohtani bolted onto the mound to do something even he has never done before. The Japanese Manager asked Ohtani to come in and shut the door and literally win the championship for baseball’s current homeland. Never before had Ohtani been asked to or been put in a save situation out of the bullpen. Not in MLB, not even in his Nippon professional baseball career in Japan, had he been asked to take on the large specialized task of a closer. 

 

As horns, drums and fans alike wailed in the crowd for both the United States and Japan, Shoehi dug in to face the top of the formidable American lineup. As the New York Mets’ table-setter Jeff McNeil stepped into the box Ohtani’s demeanor exhibited nothing but business, all business. 

 

McNeil, who showed the patience at the plate the Mets have grown to love, worked a surprising lead-off walk off the Japanese superstar. With a man on first for the USA, they began to ramp up the energy and attack to tie or even win the game in the 9th inning. In true Ohtani fashion however, he forced one the best hitters in baseball, Mookie Betts, to drive the ball into the ground toward second and the Japanese infielder immediately gobbled it up for a crushing double play for the United States, leaving Japan within one final out of their third World Championship.

 

In a scene that couldn’t be scripted, something out of one of the Major League movies, Mike Trout stood between Japan and Ohtani holding up a championship trophy in front of their crowd, most of whom traveled 17 hours plus to attend the deciding game in Miami. Neither could have imagined facing their MLB teammate in such a serious and intense manner, let alone with a true World Championship on the line. 

 

Fire burned in the eyes of both Los Angeles Angels, as one donned the Rising Sun and the other the Stars and Stripes and they both stood with aspirations of a championship clinching strikeout or a home run to tie the game and send the decisive game into extra innings. One of MLB’s greatest superstars in the history of the game reached and even exceeded his own expectations, and that was Shohei Ohtani.

 

Reaching back and giving every bit of himself on the mound Sho provided an experience Mike Trout, no doubt one of the game’s best, has never lived through. Of Trout’s 6,174 career plate appearances he has only had three swing and miss strikes in 24 of those at bats. So, to put it into perspective, in what Trout declared the biggest game of his life and in turn making it the biggest at bat of his life, Ohtani threw by him a 100 mph fastball, a 99 mph fastball, and finally an 87 mph slider to lock up Japan’s third title as the true home and kings of baseball. 

 

For his mythological performance in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Shohei Ohtani appeared twice in the All-Tournament team, once as a pitcher, once as a hitter. Much more importantly for Shohei Ohtani is putting his nation of Japan back up on the championship pedestal. Stamping themselves as the headquarters of the baseball world with their third world championship, to which Ohtani replied when asked how it felt, that it was the best moment in his entire life.