Ohtani announced via social media that he will play for Japan national baseball team in next year\u2019s World Baseball Classic, set to begin in early March 2026. The decision comes after Japan\u2019s championship win in the 2023 edition of the tournament \u2014 a run in which Ohtani was named MVP for his dual contributions as a hitter and a pitcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement is significant given Ohtani\u2019s recent MLB season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, which saw him return to pitching for the first time in two years following elbow surgery. While he confirmed participation, he did not<\/em> specify whether he will play as both a pitcher and hitter for Japan, leaving some uncertainty around his role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Japan aims to defend its WBC title, Ohtani\u2019s participation adds star power and raises expectations. His previous performance in the 2023 tournament \u2014 including a final-inning strikeout of Mike Trout to seal the title \u2014 already cemented his international legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ohtani announced via social media that he will play for Japan national baseball team in next year\u2019s World Baseball Classic, set to begin in early March 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"digital-newspaper-featured":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"digital-newspaper-list":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74.webp",560,373,false],"digital-newspaper-thumb":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"digital-newspaper-small":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74-150x95.webp",150,95,true],"digital-newspaper-grid":["https:\/\/theamshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/250527-shohei-ohtani-pitching-se-246p-362d74-400x250.webp",400,250,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Sports<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Ohtani announced via social media that he will play for Japan national baseball team in next year\u2019s World Baseball Classic, set to begin in early March 2026.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3799,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions\/3799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamshift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}