Shohei Ohtani stepped into the batter’s box Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs, and the Tokyo Dome crowd, which had been roaring moments earlier, fell silent.
As the leadoff hitter for the Dodgers, Ohtani is loved by Japanese fans, but this game carried a different energy. After the Dodgers’ 4-1 win, he admitted to feeling something unusual — nerves.
“I was actually pretty nervous,” Ohtani told Harold Reynolds of MLB Network via his interpreter Will Ireton.