Baseball-Ohtani grand slam at WBC kicks off Japan rout of Chinese Taipei

By Rocky Swift

TOKYO, March 6 (Reuters) – Shohei Ohtani didn’t wait long to give the hometown crowd what they wanted, launching a second inning grand slam to begin a Samurai Japan rout over Chinese Taipei in their World Baseball Classic matchup on Friday.

Fans packed into Tokyo Dome erupted after Ohtani turned on a curveball by Hao-Chun Cheng, sending it over the right field wall. Japan scored six more times in the inning, going on to win 13-0 when the game was called after the seventh due to the mercy rule.

“I thought it might land as an out, so above all, I really wanted to get the first run on the board,” Ohtani said in a post-game interview. “I know there will be some tough battles ahead, but if the fans and the team can unite and everyone can help build the excitement together, it will really encourage us.”

A global sporting spectacle now in its sixth incarnation since 2006, the WBC is a showcase of national pride in Japan, with the team fielding their best players and leading all other nations with three championships.

Already among the greatest players of all time, Ohtani’s national hero status just keeps growing. He returns to Japan after collecting his second-straight Major League World Series ring with the Los Angeles Dodgers and his third Most Valuable Player award.

When not physically in the country, his visage looks out from countless billboards advertising everything from tea and rice balls to English conversation schools.

Ohtani’s Dodger teammate and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto started for Samurai Japan, pitching 2 2/3 scoreless innings. Japan takes on South Korea on Saturday, while Chinese Taipei, now 0-2 after losing to Australia on Thursday, will face Czechia next.

At a season-opening series at the Tokyo Dome last March, Ohtani led the Dodgers to a two-game sweep of the Cubs. Like last year, it’s a festival atmosphere, with thousands of fans in snaking lines to buy WBC merchandise.

JAPAN DEFENDING TITLE

The tournament, which runs from March 5-17 across Tokyo, Puerto Rico, Houston and Miami, brings together 20 national teams competing in round-robin pools before the top two from each group advance to the quarter-finals.

Japan, playing in Pool C, arrive as the defending champions after beating the United States in the 2023 final that ended dramatically when Ohtani struck out Mike Trout, his Los Angeles Angels teammate at the time, for the last out. The win added to Japan’s victories in 2006 and 2009, and extended their record of reaching at least the semi-finals in each event.

Ohtani, 31, is not expected to pitch in the tournament as the Dodgers hope to preserve his arm, offering Samurai Japan just his formidable bat as designated hitter. The first pitching-batting dual threat since Babe Ruth, Ohtani threw in just 47 innings in the regular season of 2024 as he recovered from a second surgery on his right elbow.

The focus allowed him to dominate at the plate, becoming the first player to ever hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season and being named the National League MVP in a unanimous vote. Ohtani had three hits in four at-bats on Friday before being subbed out in the seventh inning.

Even without Ohtani on the mound, Japan still enter the tournament with a deep pitching staff that includes fellow Dodgers Yamamoto and Yusei Kikuchi and Tomoyuki Sugano of the Colorado Rockies. The squad has eight Major Leaguers in all, with the rest coming from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball organisation.

Streaming giant Netflix is leveraging the WBC’s popularity in Japan to make a push in the market, locking up domestic broadcasting rights for all 47 games and offering discounts to new subscribers. Netflix reportedly paid 15 billion yen ($95.26 million) for the rights fees, five times the 2023 level, according to reports in Japanese media.

A Netflix representative declined to comment on the rights fees. The streamer is hosting about 150 public viewing events around Japan, which has not halted some grumbling among fans and local media about the games being unavailable on free television for the first time.

($1 = 157.4700 yen)

(Reporting by Rocky Swift in TokyoEditing by Christian Radnedge)