{"id":549515,"date":"2026-02-01T21:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/549515\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T21:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:09:17","slug":"ohtani-will-not-pitch-in-wbc-roberts-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/549515\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohtani will not pitch in WBC, Roberts says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shohei Ohtani will play for Japan but will not pitch for the defending champions in next month\u2019s World Baseball Classic (WBC), Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>Roberts said Ohtani, the 31-year-old two-way superstar who led the Dodgers to the 2024 and 2025 World Series titles, made the decision to not take the mound until the Dodgers begin this year\u2019s MLB campaign. <\/p>\n<p>Ohtani clinched the 2023 WBC crown for Japan when he struck out then-Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout. Ohtani was named the 2023 WBC Most Valuable Player (MVP). <\/p>\n<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/P06-260202-328.jpg\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p>Ohtani said he expects to be ready to pitch for the Dodgers when the regular season begins in late next month. <\/p>\n<p>After undergoing two right elbow operations in 2023, Ohtani did not return to the mound for the Dodgers until June last year. <\/p>\n<p>He threw 47 innings last MLB season with a 2.87 earned-run average and 62 strikeouts with only nine walks allowed. <\/p>\n<p>In his first mound appearances in the MLB playoffs, right-hander Ohtani was 2-1 with a 4.43 earned-run average and 28 strikeouts over 20 1\/3 innings. <\/p>\n<p>Ohtani, a five-time MLB All-Star and four-time league MVP, will try to help Japan a fourth title in six WBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani will play for Japan but will not pitch for the defending champions in next month\u2019s World&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,4,7109,7108],"class_list":{"0":"post-549515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-angels","8":"tag-angels","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-angels","12":"tag-laangels","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-angels","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesangels","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-the-taipei-times","19":"tag-7108"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549515","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=549515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}