Shohei Ohtani after hitting a home run. Ashley Landis/AP
Shohei Ohtani:
Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese hitting and pitching sensation and the biggest name in Major League Baseball (MLB), joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024 on a record-high ten-year, seven million dollar contract. Ohtani made an impact on the team and the sport of baseball as a whole that is nothing short of historic.
Shohei Ohtani underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023, which is very common among high-level pitchers, due to the strain on the elbow that pitching causes. Despite the surgery preventing him from pitching during the 2024 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers still signed him, showing immense faith in his prospects as a designated hitter. Ohtani met and greatly exceeded these expectations in the 2024 season.
Before going to the Dodgers, Ohtani was already one of the MLB’s most prolific hitters, but his 2024 season blew his previous performances out of the water. He broke his personal records in nearly every important measure of hitting: home runs, runs batted in (RBIs), doubles, hits, and runs scored. He also broke the Dodgers franchise record for home runs in a season with an incredible fifty-four runs, placing him second in the league for home runs. Additionally, Ohtani, for the first time in MLB history, hit over fifty home runs and stole over fifty bases in a single season, establishing the 50/50 club. The 40/40 club is already an incredibly exclusive group (it only has four other members besides Otani) of the best players in terms of power and speed. What makes Ohtani’s feat even more incredible is that he hit this milestone with a month of the six-month regular season still remaining.
Before coming to the MLB in 2018, Ohtani was Japan’s most popular baseball player, and this fame followed him across the Pacific. Pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is another star Japanese baseball player, and after winning three Most Valuable Player awards across three years in the highest level of Japanese baseball, he decided to take his talents to the MLB, signing alongside Ohtani with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024.
This coupling of the two most prominent Japanese baseball players brought incredible Japanese support for the Dodgers this year. One game between the Dodgers and the Padres, which featured Yamamoto and fellow Japanese starting pitcher Yu Darvish, broke the record for viewership of an MLB game from Japan, with nearly thirteen million viewers. This number indicates the intense idolization of baseball players in Japan, showing that these three stars, Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Darvish, can unite over ten percent of the nation.
The World Series:
Ohtani and the Dodgers faced their final challenge for the World Series in a five-game series against the New York Yankees, and the Dodgers certainly met this imposing force with confidence and strength.
Game one of the series quickly set the tone, when after pushing into extra innings in what was an incredibly close game and series, first-baseman Freddie Freeman hit an incredible walk-off grand slam to win the game. This was the first time that a walk-off grand slam was hit in a World Series game. This exposed the disorganized nature of the Yankees, which would only be exacerbated later in the series. An important reason for Freeman hitting this grand slam was who was on the mound at the time, as two batters before Freeman, Yankees manager Aaron Boone chose to put in Nestor Cortes to pitch. Cortes had proved to be a very consistent starting pitcher throughout the 2024 season; however, he had not pitched in a game for an entire month and thus was not at his peak performance.
The Dodgers continued to capitalize on the weaknesses of the Yankees, and quickly took a lead in game two, which starting pitcher Yamamoto would not give up. The Dodgers came even closer to the championship in game three, with Freeman hitting an early home run and stellar pitching from Walker Buehler. This enabled the Dodgers to keep their momentum going, putting them only one game away from winning the World Series in a clean sweep.
The Yankees surged back in game four, and had an immense 11-4 win, regaining their hope and confidence. This continued into the fifth game, where the Yankees established a comfortable 5-0 lead. However, with a bout of sloppy defense from the Yankees, the Dodgers were able to tie the game up solely by exploiting defensive errors. The Dodgers picked up two more runs in the following innings. These runs, in addition to the pitching performances by Buehler and Blake Treinen, led the Los Angeles Dodgers to beat the Yankees to win the World Series 4-1.
Walker Buehler after pitching the final out of the 2024 World Series. Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers’ World Series run proved to the rest of the MLB that they are not just a collection of high-paid superstars but a strong, perseverant team that does not rely only on its stars. This is no better shown than by Ohtani’s underwhelming World Series performance. Coming off of his astounding regular season performance, Ohtani was expected to perform just as well, if not better in the World Series, but he played at one of the worst levels in his career. In the regular season, Ohtani had an excellent .310 batting average, but during the World Series, this dropped over two hundred points to a .105, with only two hits out of nineteen at-bats. This, coupled with a shoulder injury in game two, led to both a poor hitting and baserunning performance by Ohtani in the World Series. Nevertheless, the Dodgers did not falter and pushed on. With Ohtani’s low contribution in the World Series, the rest of the team stepped up to fill his role, namely Freeman, who hit four home runs and twelve RBIs across the series; Buehler, whose pitching controlled the Yankees lineup in numerous appearances in the series; and Mookie Betts, who had numerous important hits and defensive plays.
In the 2024 World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers silenced the many people who claimed their 2020 World Series was undeserved and the team was not tough enough to win when it really mattered. In an interview after the final game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “It wasn’t easy, but our guys fought and played every day the right way, played to win.” The Dodgers showed that they are one of the most commanding teams in the MLB and they show no signs of slowing down.
Future of the Dodgers:
The future of the Dodgers looks promising, especially after their impressive 2024 World Series victory, marking the eighth victory in the team’s history. To add to their already impressive team, the Dodgers have been recruiting new players, including the gifted new Japanese right-handed pitcher, Roki Sasaki, who is regarded as one of the most talented pitchers in Japan. Although the Dodgers aren’t guaranteed to win over Sasaki, their appeal as a West Coast team with a Japanese presence, a competitive roster, and top-notch player development should be very attractive to him. If Sasaki does join the Dodgers, he will bolster the Dodgers’ impressive pitching alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow. Even if he doesn’t join the team, the Dodgers remain a strong contender for the next World Series with their existing pitching lineup.
While the Dodgers are recruiting, several key pitchers like Buehler and Ohtani have been recovering well. Buehler was even deemed healthy enough to pitch in vital moments during the World Series, and he made a great impact on the series. Ohtani is recuperating from his prior elbow surgery and more recent left shoulder surgery following his World Series injury and is optimistic about his return in 2025 as both a pitcher and batter. Ohtani, as well as four other returning Dodgers pitchers who were injured in 2024, could make the Dodgers an even more powerful team next season. The start of the season is still months away, but it is already clear that the Dodgers will be one of the most dominant teams in Major League Baseball.
The Dodgers hoist their 2024 World Series trophy. LA Dodgers/MLB World Series Press Release
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