{"id":11771,"date":"2025-05-08T22:37:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T22:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/11771\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T22:37:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T22:37:25","slug":"opening-day-2025-a-look-at-japanese-major-league-baseball-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/11771\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Day 2025: A Look at Japanese Major League Baseball Players"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\tMVP Ohtani Sh\u014dhei leads the list of 13 Japanese players taking part in the 2025 Major League Baseball season. Play ball!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t Ready to Go in 2025<\/p>\n

The 2025 Major League Baseball season features 13 Japanese players. Ahead of the official Opening Day on March 27, Ohtani Sh\u014dhei and the World Series champions Los Angeles Dodgers will be in Tokyo for a two-game series against the Chicago Cubs on March 18 and 19. Japanese fans will be eager to see the MVP in action with teammate Yamamoto Yoshinobu, as well as Chicago\u2019s Imanaga Sh\u014dta and Suzuki Seiya.<\/p>\n

As the Major Leagues prepare to move into the regular season, the Dodgers have also called up Sasaki R\u014dki, their third Japanese piching phenom. He is expected to start in the second game of the season.<\/p>\n

American League<\/p>\n

\"Sugano<\/a><\/p>\n

Sugano Tomoyuki<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Baltimore Orioles<\/p>\n

\"Yoshida<\/a><\/p>\n

Yoshida Masataka<\/p>\n

Left fielder
Boston Red Sox<\/p>\n

\"Maeda<\/a><\/p>\n

Maeda Kenta<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Detroit Tigers<\/p>\n

\"Kikuchi<\/a><\/p>\n

Kikuchi Y\u016bsei<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Los Angeles Angels<\/p>\n

National League<\/p>\n

\"Senga<\/a><\/p>\n

Senga K\u014ddai<\/p>\n

Pitcher
New York Mets<\/p>\n

\"Ogasawara<\/a><\/p>\n

Ogasawara Shinnosuke<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Washington Nationals<\/p>\n

\"Imanaga<\/a><\/p>\n

Imanaga Sh\u014dta<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Chicago Cubs<\/p>\n

\"Suzuki<\/a><\/p>\n

Suzuki Seiya<\/p>\n

Right fielder
Chicago Cubs<\/p>\n

\"Ohtani<\/a><\/p>\n

Ohtani Sh\u014dhei<\/p>\n

Pitcher\/DH
Los Angeles Dodgers<\/p>\n

\"Yamamoto<\/a><\/p>\n

Yamamoto Yoshinobu<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Los Angeles Dodgers<\/p>\n

\"Sasaki<\/a><\/p>\n

Sasaki R\u014dki<\/p>\n

Pitcher
Los Angeles Dodgers<\/p>\n

\"Matsui<\/a><\/p>\n

Matsui Y\u016bki<\/p>\n

Pitcher
San Diego Padres<\/p>\n

\"Darvish<\/a><\/p>\n

Darvish Y\u016b<\/p>\n

Pitcher
San Diego Padres<\/p>\n

(Photo of Senga K\u014ddai \u00a9\ufe0e\u00a0IMAGN Images\/Reuters Connect; all other photos \u00a9\u00a0USA Today Sports\/Reuters Connect)<\/p>\n

All eyes will be on Ohtani, who is coming off his record 50-50 season<\/a> as the Dodgers\u2019 designated hitter and will be looking to brandish his talents on the mound again in 2025. The star has made good progress after undergoing a procedure on his left shoulder in November and is eager to resume his tenure as the MLB\u2019s only two-way player.<\/p>\n

A record three Japanese pitchers are expected to start for their teams on Opening Day. Yamamoto of the Dodgers and Imanaga of the Cubs are the likely starters in game one of the Tokyo series, and Kikuchi Y\u016bsei is slated to kick off the season, his seventh in the majors, pitching for the Los Angeles Angels against the Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\n

Fitting his performance last year, Ohtani leads the 2025 ranking of the US television sports channel MLB Network\u2019s top 100 players list, which it releases each year ahead of the regular season. He is joined by Yamamoto at sixty-third, Imanaga at sixty-fourth, and Suzuki at seventy-third. Pitcher Sasaki R\u014dki<\/a>, who signed a minor-league contract with the Dodgers and has been called up to start in the second game of the regular season after two scoreless outings in preseason play, rounds out the list at number 100.<\/p>\n

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Ohtani Sh\u014dhei of the Los Angeles Dodgers warms up during spring training in Phoenix, Arizona, on February 25, 2025. \u00a9\u00a0USA Today Sports\/Reuters Connect.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MVP Ohtani Sh\u014dhei leads the list of 13 Japanese players taking part in the 2025 Major League Baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,4,2353,2352,6612,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-11771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-npb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","11":"tag-npb","12":"tag-ohtani-shohei","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114474611090626269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}