{"id":588334,"date":"2026-02-23T13:53:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/588334\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T13:53:21","slug":"shohei-ohtani-reveals-what-needs-to-happen-for-him-to-pitch-in-the-wbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/588334\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani reveals what needs to happen for him to pitch in the WBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Dodger two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani is not expected to pitch for Team Japan in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, though he jokingly left the door open to the possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Asked on Sunday during the Dodgers\u2019 spring training game against the San Diego Padres if there\u2019s a chance he would volunteer to toe the rubber in another championship game against Team USA, the two-time National League Most Valuable Player <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DodgersNation\/status\/2025686949697323311\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">responded with a hilarious quip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say, but if [Mike] Trout shows up, it\u2019s tempting,\u201d Ohtani answered via his interpreter Will Ireton.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, fans shouldn\u2019t expect to see Ohtani on the mound in the tournament, as Trout is not part of Team USA\u2019s WBC roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But they will always have that iconic head-to-head in the 2023 edition of the WBC, where Ohtani memorably struck out his former Los Angeles Angels teammate to close out the championship game and give Japan the title.<\/p>\n<p>Although he will not pitch for Japan this time around in the WBC, the 31-year-old Ohtani will still be a major cog for the reigning world champions. In 2023, he led Team Japan with a batting line of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/world-baseball-classic\/stats\/japan\/batting-average\/2023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">.435\/.606\/.739 <\/a>to go with a home run, 10 walks and 8 RBIs in seven games.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Dodger two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani is not expected to pitch for Team Japan in the 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,603,4,468,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-588334","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-mike-trout","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-shohei-ohtani","20":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116120282934534808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588334","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=588334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}