LOS ANGELES: Shohei Ohtani said there’s one place he doesn’t want to hear the “We don’t need you!” chant — at home from his family.
A day before the World Series resumes with Game 3 at Dodger Stadium, the two-way Los Angeles superstar smiled and laughed about the derisive chant directed at him late in Toronto’s opening win Friday. Blue Jays fans remain stung he signed with the Dodgers in December 2023 rather than their team.
“It was a really great chant, and my wife really appreciated it,” he said Sunday through a translator following the Dodgers’ workout.
Ohtani is hitting .224 in 12 postseason games with six homers, 11 RBIs and one stolen base and is 2 for 8 with a two-run homer and a single in the Series. He is 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA in his pair of mound starts, striking out 19 and walking four in 12 innings.
“I do feel better at the plate recently,” the 31-year-old three-time MVP said. “I do everything in my power to make sure that I’m prepared as much as possible and being at the plate with the right mentality, but got to give some credit to the other side as well.”
Los Angeles and Toronto are tied at a game apiece in the best-of-seven matchup.
Ohtani will oppose Shane Bieber in Game 4 on Tuesday night with a chance to become the first pitcher to hit a World Series homer in 17 years. He wouldn’t mind if his unprecedented performances will lead to more two-way players.
“I like to encourage kids who are trying the two-way to do it as long as possible, as long as they’re allowed to, as much as their talent level could take them,” he said.
Growing up in Japan, he looked up to Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki, Japanese stars who had great success in Major League Baseball.
“It’s not like I could watch a lot of the games on TV, and so it was really those two players,”
Ohtani said.
Babe Ruth, the player Ohtani has been compared to, was never a fulltime pitcher and field player at the same time, cutting down his mound appearances in 1918 and ‘19 as he became more of an everyday outfielder and occasional first baseman.
Ruth pitched only five times from 1920 through the end of his career in 1935.
Ruth was 3-0 with a 0.87 ERA in three World Series starts for Boston, pitching 29 2/3 scoreless innings at one stretch and helping win titles in 1916 and ‘18. He was 1 for 10 at the plate in those starts, hitting a tiebreaking two-run triple in Game 4 in 1918 as he allowed two runs over eight innings.
Ohtani entered the Series following a standout performance in Game 4 of the NL Championship Series against Milwaukee, when he homered three times, pitched six shutout innings and struck out 10. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred called it “probably the greatest game of all time.”
“He’s kind of like a super human,” fellow Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow said ahead of his Game 3 outing.
Ohtani is 2 for 16 with a double, one RBI and six strikeouts against Bieber, a former Cy Young Award winner.
