Ohtani electrified in spring debut
PHOENIX – Well, just in case anyone was wondering whether Shohei Ohtani could possibly live up to the hype, in one glorious afternoon Tuesday he had Dodgers fans reveling, teammates marveling and his manager running out of superlatives.
One swing.
One sky-high, fly ball.
One opposite-field homer.
That’s all it took to remind everyone why the Dodgers dropped $700 million on the generational talent.
Ohtani, who until eight days ago had not faced even batting practice off a pitcher since last September, stepped up and hit a towering home run in his final swing of the day as he made his Dodgers debut against the Chicago White Sox.
“It’s remarkable, it really is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously, there’s been so many huge moments for him in his career, and he always seems to rise to those moments.”
In his first game since undergoing elbow surgery last September, Ohtani struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat. He grounded into a double play in his second at-bat. And then he hit a 377-foot home run deep into the Arizona sky, 102 mph off his bat, over the left-field fence off White Sox reliever Dominic Leone.
The big fella is back.
“It was definitely a big first step,” Ohtani said.
And a huge step for Dodgers-kind. It may have been just a meaningless spring training game on the schedule (the Dodgers won 9-6), but everyone in that Dodgers clubhouse knew when they arrived this would be an exhibition game like no other.
Ohtani, wearing a white sweater, black pants and a backwards baseball cap on his head, walked to his locker at 8:35 in the morning. Heads turned, conversations stopped, and the man of the hour was the focus of the day.
“Even when Ohtani just goes out there for a stretch,” teammate T.J. McFarland says, “you get this uproar. It’s cool. It brings excitement to the game.”
There may have been just 6,678 tickets sold for the mid-week game, but there were an estimated 40 million fans in Japan, MLB officials said, getting up at 5 a.m. to catch Ohtani’s first plate appearance in a Dodgers uniform.
Oh, how life has changed since Ohtani’s first spring-training game in 2018 with the Los Angeles Angels.
“It was obviously a lot different,” Ohtani said, “because six years ago, seven years ago, I had no idea what I was really doing. But now, I kind of got the hang of it.”
You think?
Ohtani was just a novelty in those days, a young player from Japan trying to become a two-way player.
Today, he is baseball’s modern-day Babe Ruth, capturing our imagination — and leaving us wondering just how lethal the Dodgers’ offense can be.
Roberts ended the mystery of where Ohtani would bat in his star-studded lineup this season by opting to go with Mookie Betts in the leadoff spot, followed by Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith.
The last team to have three former MVPs bat consecutively in a regularseason game was the 1996 Boston Red Sox with Mo Vaughn, Jose Canseco and Kevin Mitchell.
There was never any question that Betts was going to bat leadoff, Roberts said (”Mookie really has thrived in the leadoff spot”), but he deliberated these past two months whether Ohtani would bat second or third. He ultimately decided that Ohtani, who’s more of a free swinger than Freeman, would be better sandwiched between Betts and Freeman to potentially get more pitches in the strike zone.
“I feel that having Shohei hit in front of Freddie gives Shohei a lot of protection,” Roberts said. “And the ability to have the foot speed component in front of Freddy, I think, will create a lot of scoring from base, a potential stolen base threat. And then to have potential stolen base threat and then to have Will Smith behind Freddie made a lot of sense to me.”
Roberts consulted with Ohtani and Freeman, but neither had a preference, making Roberts’ decision seamless, and on this day, look flawless thanks to Ohtani’s blast.
“If you look at the DNA of the two hitters, Shohei is more of a free swinger than Freddie,” Roberts said. “Pitchers are still going to attack Shohei in a specific way, no doubt about it, but there’s also a chance that they should be in the strike zone a little more than if Freddie wasn’t behind him.
“Not to take anything away from anybody else on our roster, but Freddie is the biggest presence for protection behind Shohei.”
It’s not as if the lineup is permanent by any means, Roberts says, but the top of the lineup may be the same from March 20 against the San Diego Padres in South Korea to the postseason in October.
“I mean, it was just the first game, so it’s hard to tell,” Ohtani said, “but I definitely think it’s going to help out. It’s not just on Freddie, but you got Mookie in front of me, and a bunch of great hitters behind Freddie. So, I’m excited to find out how it’s going to feel…
“No matter where I’m hitting in the lineup, I’m not really going to change my approach.”
Ohtani did not share in everyone’s hysteria over a spring-training homer, crediting the thin Arizona air for his homer, believing he hit the ball too high in the air. All he knows is that he’s back. He’s healthy. And it sure feels good playing in a game again for the first time since undergoing elbow surgery last September.
“The biggest thing, I was able to finish off the game,” Ohtani said, “without any problems.”
It’s hard to imagine that just three weeks ago, he was hitting off a tee and hitting soft-toss from coaches.
Eight days ago, he was facing pitchers in batting practice for the first time since being shut down in September.
Now, here he is, homering off majorleague pitchers.
“I just have a good feeling,” Roberts said, breaking into a wide grin, “there’s more to come.”