{"id":606715,"date":"2026-02-21T21:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/606715\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:55:12","slug":"dodgers-star-shohei-ohtani-set-to-play-a-couple-of-cactus-league-games-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/606715\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani set to play a couple of Cactus League games \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to play a couple of Cactus League games for the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers before he departs the desert to join Japan for the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

He was in the lineup leading off as designated hitter scheduled for two or three at-bats for the club’s spring training opener Saturday afternoon against the Angels at Tempe Diablo Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes he takes two and he feels good or he wants that third at-bat,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said.<\/p>\n

When asked about Ohtani’s travel plans, Roberts smiled and said, \u201cI promised I’d try.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani is scheduled to pitch against live hitting Sunday \u2014 and Roberts has already said the 31-year-old\u00a0two-way star should be in the Cy Young Award conversation<\/a>\u00a0this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that it’s going to be soon. He’s going to play in a couple Cactus League games, but I’m not exactly sure when his plane ticket is. He hasn’t said,” Roberts said. \u201cSo I don’t know what day he’s going to join Team Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, right-hander and\u00a0reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>\u00a0was starting on the mound to pitch two innings and around 35 pitches for his lone outing for the Dodgers before he also joins the Japanese team for the WBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously him going and pitching for Team Japan, he’s going to be kind of trying to ramp it up and get prepared so I think it’s just more of what he does strike one, use his secondaries and be efficient and get some outs,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Once Yamamoto returns to Los Angeles’ camp, he will be scheduled for around four innings and 60 pitches initially, according to Roberts.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Yamamoto,\u00a0who signed a $325 million, 12-year contract<\/a>\u00a0in December 2023, went 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA in the Dodgers’ seven-game World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays \u2014 so his workload after that outstanding October is something the Dodgers will monitor closely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s up to all of us to be mindful of workloads and short term, long term and all of that stuff, which we are,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

During his remarkable World Series, Yamamoto struck out 15 and walked two over 17 2\/3 innings, allowing two runs and 10 hits. He and Randy Johnson are the only pitchers since 1969 to win three games in one World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I’m confident because there’s no exact science on ramping up early and success,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cOr being methodical and not participating to result in success during the season. There’s just no exact science. I think for me and for all of us you’re just believing in the player, knowing that he knows what it takes to get ready for a season and he takes care of himself. So I think for me it’s an easy way to kind of think and wrap my head around just kind of believing in him, trusting him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to play a couple of Cactus League games for the two-time defending World Series…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":606716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2442,2961,224,2502,5337,4712],"class_list":{"0":"post-606715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-shohei-ohtani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116110853614091719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606715","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=606715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}