But the Ohtani who arrived at Nationals Park was different from the Ohtani who arrived in the United States in 2018, who toiled with the Los Angeles Angels for six years. He is different, even, from the person who signed the largest contract in North American sports history to join the Dodgers in December.
This version of Ohtani is a month removed from the biggest — and only — scandal of his professional career, a few weeks removed from learning that his longtime friend and former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was charged with bank fraud, accused of stealing more than $16 million from the two-way star to pay off gambling debts.
This version of Ohtani, once peppered with questions about his health or where he would go in free agency, is suddenly being asked about his feelings and his personal life, about friendship and betrayal and all the things Ohtani previously kept decidedly out of sight.
The Dodgers and their manager, Dave Roberts, say Mizuhara’s departure has given them a clearer understanding of their star. If anything was lost in translation when Ohtani’s best friend was also his only line of communication, they say, they are hearing things straight from Ohtani now. But maybe that is just the spin required to paper over a painful situation that thrust the most impenetrable man in the sport into sudden vulnerability. Ohtani, careful as always, would not say much about how his baseball life is different without the only interpreter he had ever known.
“The new interpreter is probably pretty good,” Ohtani said with a smile as that new interpreter, Will Ireton, translated for him. But his deflection was only partially effective — a reporter asked him again about the emotional implications of Mizuhara’s alleged betrayal.
“The investigation is still going on so I can’t really say much about that, but it made me realize how supportive the teammates, the organization, the staff has been toward me. It has made me really reflect on how grateful I am to be surrounded by them,” he said. But when asked which teammates he has leaned on in the past few weeks, he shut the doors on candor again.
“I do want to avoid mentioning specific names,” Ohtani said. “… Right now, it’s the middle of the regular season, and I don’t want to create some type of distraction.”
It is a testament to Ohtani’s stardom that naming friends would qualify as distracting, but he knows how all this works. If he names a friend, reporters will follow that player, asking questions, hunting for details about Ohtani he will not share about himself. He is good-natured in his deflection, even politely dodging and deflecting as Japanese reporters asked him about his wife. (Ohtani revealed the couple had wed by posting an announcement on Instagram earlier this year.) Is she with him right now? She isn’t. Does he miss her? Most baseball players go entire careers without being asked questions such as those.
Most baseball players also go entire careers without hitting a 118.7-mph home run, as Ohtani did Tuesday night. But moments such as that help Ohtani push the spotlight back where he wants it, back to the field and to baseball and to the marvels only he can provide. And even this year, when he cannot stir awe by both pitching and hitting, he has managed to do it just by hitting instead. He has hit the ball so hard, so consistently, that even his manager, who had Barry Bonds as a teammate, said he has never seen anything like it. His average exit velocity, entering Friday’s games, was 95.1 mph, second best in the National League. His hardest-hit ball — that 118.7-mph homer — was two full mph harder than the next-closest candidate. (And that was before he smashed a 119.2-mph single Saturday at Toronto.) Ohtani always swung hard, but he seems to be swinging with abandon this year, with a coil and explosion that often result in his helmet flying off, drawing gasps from both the crowd and his own dugout.
“I mean, I just, I don’t see, I can’t imagine a player hitting it that often, that hard, consistently. That’s what’s remarkable to me,” Roberts said. “Even in years past, I would see him get some infield hits. But everything he hits, it seems like it’s 110 [miles per hour] off the bat, versus [left-handed pitching], versus [right-handed pitching]. Where he is now, to where he was a year ago, it’s remarkable.”
Roberts was referring to the fact that it was just last season when Ohtani injured his elbow and required surgery, but in many ways, the 29-year-old is in a vastly different place than he has ever been. He is on a star-studded roster that is expected to compete in October, batting second between two of the greatest hitters in the sport — he’s one of many who can carry this team, instead of the one constantly expected to do so. He is the highest-paid athlete in professional sports history, and his global fame has only grown. On Friday, for the first time in his career, he was the villain: Toronto fans booed him vigorously for not choosing the Blue Jays this offseason. And in some ways, he is vulnerable now, at least off the field. Somehow — as when he responded to those boos with a monster homer — he has yet to look vulnerable on it.
For all that has changed for Ohtani, his on-field dominance has not waned. Ohtani was always one of the better power hitters in baseball. Forced by that elbow injury to focus entirely on hitting, he is proving himself as one of baseball’s more well-rounded offensive players, with MLB’s third-highest batting average, entering Friday, as well as endless power. Yes, this version of Ohtani is different. And this version, in this lineup, might be even better.
Apsny News English
