{"id":151235,"date":"2026-01-27T07:12:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/151235\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:12:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:12:35","slug":"shohei-ohtani-yoshinobu-yamamoto-named-to-team-japans-wbc-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/151235\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto named to Team Japan’s WBC roster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japan\u2019s roster for the World Baseball Classic<\/a> features familiar names, but one question lingers.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a>\u2019 Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> were among those named to Team Japan by manager Hirokazu Ibata on Monday at a news conference in Tokyo. Ohtani previously announced his intention to participate<\/a> in the WBC in November, and Yamamoto was expected to take part despite a heavy workload<\/a> in the Dodgers\u2019 run to a second straight World Series championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki<\/a>, who will be returning to the starting rotation after missing most of last year\u2019s regular season because of a shoulder injury, was not selected. Sasaki was on Team Japan in 2023, starting two games \u2014 including a dramatic semifinal win over Mexico<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his earlier announcement, Ohtani did not indicate whether he would pitch in the WBC and on Monday Ibata told reporters that the team will get a better sense once Ohtani reports to spring training next month.<\/p>\n

In the 2023 WBC, Ohtani won tournament most valuable player with a .435 batting average and 1.86 ERA, helping Japan to the title. He punctuated the event with his memorable strikeout of Mike Trout<\/a> for the final out in the championship game.<\/p>\n

Eight major leaguers were named to Team Japan\u2019s WBC roster, including Angels<\/a> left-hander Yusei Kukuchi, Padres left-hander Yuki Matsui, Blue Jays infielder Kazuma Okamoto, White Sox infielder Munetaka Murakami, Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki and right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, currently a free agent who pitched for the Baltimore Orioles last year.<\/p>\n

MLB players are expected to join Team Japan for exhibition games on March 2. Japan will open WBC play on March 6 against Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s roster for the World Baseball Classic features familiar names, but one question lingers. The Dodgers\u2019 Shohei Ohtani…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,426,423,7036,74752,2959,1024,7529,10250,74753,422,51470,16234,40746,74751,429],"class_list":["post-151235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-dodgers","tag-game","tag-last-year","tag-manager-hirokazu-ibata","tag-march","tag-monday","tag-news-conference","tag-ohtani","tag-padres-left-hander-yuki-matsui","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-team-japan","tag-tokyo","tag-wbc","tag-wbc-roster","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}