TOKYO — For a second, it felt like all of Japan held its collective breath. The Tokyo Dome, identified all through the globe for its vitality and electrical environment fell silent because the sheeted lifeless. Then, as Shohei Ohtani’s bat related on a curveball, a line drive to proper area, the group erupted.
The Dodgers worldwide megastar, taking part in on his house soil for the primary time as a significant leaguer, delivered the hit that jolted Los Angeles to life, setting the stage for the group’s thrilling 4-1 comeback over the Chicago Cubs within the opening sport of the 2025 MLB season.
The journey to Opening Day was practically a yr within the making as each groups traveled over 6,000 miles for this second. Not one of the different 28 groups in Main League Baseball needed to journey the world over to play two video games earlier than heading all the way in which again throughout the Pacific Ocean for extra spring coaching video games.
Nobody else needed to arrive per week early to spring coaching, finish it a weak earlier, break their regular routines and disrupt their lives for a few video games on the opposite facet of the world. However no person else is Shohei Ohtani and the reigning World Collection champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
In entrance of a packed home, in a metropolis that’s buzzing with baseball fever, two historic franchises clashed below the Tokyo lights. The 2025 MLB Tokyo Collection was a celebration of Japanese baseball at its best. 5 Japanese-born gamers had been on the lively rosters and can play within the sequence.
Regardless that this was a sequence between two of baseball’s iconic franchises, it was nonetheless the Ohtani present.
Ohtani is extra than simply well-known in his house nation. He’s an A-list celeb, a rock star and a cultural icon all rolled into one. Through the two-game sequence, over a dozen completely different commercials that includes Ohtani flashed throughout TV screens in Tokyo. His face is featured on billboards, taxi cabs, subway trains, storefront home windows and extra.
Every time Ohtani stepped to the plate, followers roared and cheered. All of them took out their telephones to document his each motion and held their collective breath throughout every pitch. They oohed and aahed at each ball he put into play and gasped when he struck out.
So, after the flags had been unfurled and the nationwide anthems, performed by Japanese musician Yoshiki, had been accomplished, after the Pokemon introductions and the plethora of Pikachu’s danced throughout the diamond, there was lastly baseball being performed within the 2025 MLB season.
For the primary time for the reason that Dodgers defeated the Yankees in Sport 5 of the 2024 World Collection at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 30, the video games really counted, and LA’s title protection has formally begun.
Ohtani completed the sport 2-for-5 with a single, a double and two runs scored. His first hit of the 2025 season, a line drive to proper area, got here within the high of the fifth inning.
Tommy Edman tied the sport with a line drive to left area, and Ohtani scored the go-ahead run on an errant throw by Cubs second baseman Jon Berti.
Teoscar Hernandez added an insurance coverage run within the high of the ninth.
That will be all of the Dodgers would wish as their pitching workers did the remaining. Anthony Banda, Ben Casparius, Blake Treinen and free agent acquisition Tanner Scott mixed for 4 shutout innings with the latter incomes his first save in Dodger blue.
Yamamoto is aware of what it is prefer to journey the world over to pitch in a baseball sport, and is now not a rookie with the burden of the world on his shoulders. After a dominant postseason by which he was the ace of the Dodgers damage riddled World Collection-winning pitching workers, Yamamoto has emerged because the ace of the 2025 workers.
TOKYO, JAPAN – MARCH 18: Yoshinobu Yamamoto #18 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after the underside of the fifth inning in the course of the MLB Tokyo Collection sport towards Chicago Cubs at Tokyo Dome on March 18, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan. (Picture by Masterpress/Getty Pictures)
Regardless of being the proverbial center little one, to “huge brother” Ohtani and little brother Roki Sasaki, Yamamoto’s three-pitch mixture of fastball, curveball and splitter stored the Cubs hitters off-balance all night time lengthy. His solely blemish was an RBI double to Miguel Amaya within the backside of the second.
In a mirror reverse efficiency from his first begin of the 2024 season, Yamamoto allowed only one run on three hits with 4 strikeouts in 5 innings. He seized the chance in his house nation and earned the win over his fellow countryman Shota Imanaga within the first all-Japanese Opening Day beginning pitching matchup in MLB historical past.
Each groups will play once more tomorrow, however the recollections of this sport will final a lifetime, and for the 42,635 followers in attendance at Tokyo Dome, they’ll bear in mind it for years to return.
