{"id":403131,"date":"2025-11-25T07:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403131\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T07:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:45:11","slug":"shohei-ohtani-announces-he-will-play-for-japan-in-next-years-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403131\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani announces he will play for Japan in next year&#8217;s World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">LOS ANGELES &#8212; Shohei Ohtani plans to play for Japan in next year&#8217;s World Baseball Classic, the two-way Los Angeles Dodgers star announced on social media Monday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ohtani helped Japan win the 2023 WBC, striking out then-Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout for the final out of the championship game against the United States. He was named MVP of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ohtani <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mvp-ohtani-raleigh-judge-b3075edd1277418edc5f695e0e8b23ea\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">won his fourth MVP award<\/a> this month, shortly after he helped the Dodgers win their second straight World Series title. He returned to the mound this season after not pitching in 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In the postseason, he had arguably the best game in major league history, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-1622bc3201e482ae505a8c1233f2ca1a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">striking out 10 batters and hitting three homers<\/a> as the Dodgers completed a four-game NL Championship Series sweep of Milwaukee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ohtani did not specify in his post whether he plans to pitch for Japan in the WBC, which begins on March 5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">AP MLB: <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES &#8212; Shohei Ohtani plans to play for Japan in next year&#8217;s World Baseball Classic, the two-way&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":403132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[190612,347,591,1266,1822,104832,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-403131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-190612","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-baseball","13":"tag-mlb-world-series","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115609228334196188","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}