Shohei Ohtani, the largest baseball star on the planet, made his Los Angeles Dodgers debut on Tuesday. Manning DH and batting second in Dave Roberts’ lineup – wedged between Mookie Betts within the leadoff spot and Freddie Freeman within the three gap – Ohtani noticed sport motion as a Dodger for the primary time of their Cactus League matchup with the White Sox at Camelback Ranch in Arizona.
Ohtani’s first two at-bats have been forgettable — he struck out wanting in his first at-bat and grounded right into a double play his second time up — however after all the third time is a allure. In his third at-bat Tuesday, Ohtani lifted a towering two-run residence run to the alternative discipline in opposition to Chicago righty Dominic Leone. To the motion footage:
In accordance with the Los Angeles Occasions, the ball traveled 377 toes and left Ohtani’s bat at 102 mph. The house run was Ohtani’s closing at-bat of the day — it is typical for gamers to get solely two or three at-bats within the early days of spring coaching — and his upcoming schedule has not but been introduced. He might get Wednesday off earlier than returning to the lineup Thursday.
The 29-year-old Ohtani, usually a two-way celebrity, will probably be restricted to DH responsibility this season as he recovers from elbow surgical procedure. By 2025, he needs to be again to hitting and pitching – a traditionally distinctive tandem of abilities that allowed him to win two American League MVP awards as a member of the Angels. That September elbow surgical procedure saved Ohtani out of the Dodgers’ first 4 spring-training video games and might imperil his standing for the season-opening Seoul Collection in opposition to the Padres in Korea, which is scheduled for March 20-21. That, nevertheless, is a fluid scenario, and that Ohtani was certainly in a position to be in Tuesday’s lineup is a promising step ahead from the cage work and reside at-bats that had constituted his spring up to now.
Ohtani is coming off a 2023 stroll yr for the Angels through which he batted .304/.412/.654 with an AL-best 44 residence runs and on the mound pitched 132 innings with a 3.14 ERA and 167 strikeouts. Earlier this winter, he inked a report $700 million free-agent contract with the Dodgers, albeit one that features heavy and unprecedented wage deferrals.
Ohtani joined a Dodgers crew filled with stars, together with his countryman and new L.A. ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Throw within the Dodgers’ latest historical past of regular-season dominance and long term of postseason appearances, and expectations are sky-high for 2024.
