{"id":538686,"date":"2026-01-26T10:35:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/538686\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:35:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:35:27","slug":"yamamoto-joins-ohtani-in-japans-world-baseball-classic-squad-national-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/538686\/","title":{"rendered":"Yamamoto joins Ohtani in Japan’s World Baseball Classic squad | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto joined his Los Angeles Dodgers team-mate Shohei Ohtani in being named in Japan’s World Baseball Classic squad on Monday as the defending champions completed their roster.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto and Ohtani are among seven current Major League Baseball players in Japan’s squad for the World Cup-like tournament, which is being held in Japan, the United States and Puerto Rico from March 5-17.<\/p>\n

Ohtani, the two-way superstar who helped the Dodgers win a second straight World Series title in November, had already been named in a first raft of squad members announced by manager Hirokazu Ibata last month.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto joined him along with other MLB players including Seiya Suzuki of the Chicago Cubs, Munetaka Murakami of the Chicago White Sox and Kazuma Okamoto of the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

“I feel a great sense of responsibility to represent Japan again,” Yamamoto said in a statement released by the team.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been training hard to be in shape for the World Baseball Classic. These are fantastic team-mates and coaching staff we can trust, and we want to come together and aim for the title.”<\/p>\n

Japan won the tournament for a record-extending third time at the previous tournament in 2023.<\/p>\n

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Ohtani\u00a0delivered a fairytale 3-2 victory over the United States in the final in Miami, striking out then-Los Angeles Angels team-mate Mike Trout to clinch the win.<\/p>\n

Japan manager Ibata, who announced his full squad at a packed news conference in Tokyo, said Japan were “only thinking about winning the title”.<\/p>\n

“I’m not so concerned about how we play as long as we win,” he said.<\/p>\n

Lars Nootbaar of the St. Louis Cardinals missed the squad through injury.<\/p>\n

The US-born Nootbaar, whose mother is Japanese, became a huge hit with the Tokyo crowd after being called up for the 2023 tournament.<\/p>\n

Japan have been drawn in a first round pool with South Korea, Australia, Taiwan and the Czech Republic, with all games to be played at the Tokyo Dome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto joined his Los Angeles Dodgers team-mate Shohei Ohtani in being named in Japan’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[42644,2309,5,2316,2323,3842,2437,2325,19,2310,2318,2308,468,185,2339,2324,2311,4820],"class_list":["post-538686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-afp","tag-ball-and-bat-games","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-competitions","tag-baseball-events","tag-baseball-governing-bodies","tag-baseball-leagues","tag-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports","tag-sports-competitions","tag-sports-events","tag-team-sports","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115960959646085763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538686","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=538686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}