Shohei Ohtani is off to the World Baseball Classic, representing his native Japan internationally for the first time since 2016. Despite an abbreviated spring, logging just five Cactus League at-bats before his departure from Angels camp, the 28-year-old All-Star looked to be in midseason form in Monday’s exhibition, mashing not one but two home runs against the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, the same league where Ohtani got his start as a teenage phenom for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Seeking to redeem himself after a strikeout in his first at-bat, Ohtani made this baseball disappear, depositing it in the center-field seats for a towering three-run homer. Swinging from his knees—a technique perfected by former Rangers slugger Adrian Beltre—Ohtani’s third-inning bomb off Hanshin right-hander Saiki Hiroto traveled an estimated 420 feet, the latest jaw-dropping contribution from a mammoth talent poised to become the highest-paid player in Major League history.
Unfazed by his 6,000-mile flight from Phoenix to Tokyo (jetlag be damned), Ohtani’s heroics continued in his next at-bat, putting pine to rawhide on a similarly picturesque blast—this one off left-hander Ren Tomida—giving him six RBI in a span of two innings.
Ohtani seems as locked in as any player on Earth right now, headlining a potent Japanese roster led by fellow big-leaguers Yu Darvish, Lars Nootbaar and Red Sox newcomer Masataka Yoshida. Japan has won two of the previous four World Baseball Classics including the event’s inaugural tournament in 2006. The 20-team field includes host nations Japan, Taiwan and the reigning champion United States with group play beginning in Taichung, Tokyo, Phoenix and Miami later this week.
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