October 10, 2025 • 34 mins
The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies in an NLDS Game 4 for the ages at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night. The Boys in Blue advance now to the National League Championship Series, which starts on Monday, against either the Brewers or the Cubs.
In this episode, we break down the wild game that closed out the series, last night at Dodger Stadium. And then, we take a close look at one of the most exciting developments to come out of the 2025 post-season: Shohei Ohtani, the two-way star, pitching for the first time as a Dodger, on baseball's biggest stage.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Dodger Blue Dream. I'm Richard Parks the third, the.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Bases loaded in two outs to the bottom of the
eleven but tied Game four.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, this is postseason baseball at its finest, most stressful.
Last night, after ten and two thirds innings of baseball,
something insane happened. Oh my goodness walked in. The bases
were loaded, there were two outs and it was the
(00:32):
bottom of the eleventh inning at Dodger Stadium, loaded for
Andy Pye and again selection very poor, two out on
bases loaded to if we score, we win the National
League Division Series and advance to the Championship Series. And
(00:57):
the Phillies season is over. And guess what happened? You
o one pitch paus grounds.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It back to Kirk.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Ten scores and the Dodgers are going to the Championship dys.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh wow, oh wow wow.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I mean, that's one of those moments that's gonna live
in history. Going into Game one, this NLDS was the
most hyped postseason series by far because it was the
two best teams of their era, dynastically speaking, at their peak,
(01:48):
with the biggest stars on both sides, the best pitchers,
the guys with the batting titles, the Biggest Sluggers. It's
got the East Coast versus West Coast thing going on.
These are legacy franchises. I mean even the uniforms look
good together. You got the Phillies red against the Dodger blue.
Philadelphia fans are always going nuts. Citizens Bank Park is
(02:11):
famous for that. So the atmosphere was guaranteed to be electric.
And there's also a sense of urgency because, on top
of everything else, nobody's getting any younger here, and these
are athletes. Their window to perform at the peak of
their powers is very short, if not now.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
When I think next round, Dodgers Phillies, that's a world series.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
This is USA Today Beat writer and MLB insider Bob
Nightingale interviewed by the Bleed Loss podcast just before the series.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Because I thinks a coin flip, who's a better team.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
Dodgers are Phillies right now.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Give a slight edge to Dodgers.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
If they get past that round. How far do you
think they could get?
Speaker 5 (02:53):
I think whoever gets that past that round wins the
world series.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
World series, well, the most typed series, and it delivered,
especially in Game four. Last night's game. The deciding game,
which the Dodgers won in the most improbable way in
the eleventh inning by a score of two to one.
So today on the show, we're going to take a
look at that game and a little bit of the
(03:17):
rest of the series and take you through what happened,
and then after a break, we're going to dive in
and focus on one of the most compelling things we
saw in this series, which is sho hey Otani. The
Dodgers two way star on the mound for the first
time in the postseason, making history. But first, the Dodgers
(03:39):
win a wild wild NLDS Thursday, October ninth, twenty twenty five,
(04:02):
Dodgers Stadium, the NLDS Game four, Dodgers are up two
games to one over the Phillies. They just need one
more to advance.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Defensive swing up and in with a fastball, and this
one starts with a bang lord Tyler Glassnow.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
This was a pitchers duel. As we're games one in
two of this series, Game three not so much. But
we're not gonna talk much about Game three and the
Dodgers eight to three loss at home with Clayton Kershaw
getting shellacked. We're not gonna spend much time on that
at all, because we are going to the NLCS and
it's all thanks to the game four win. It was
(04:42):
Tyler glass Now for the Dodgers and Christopher Sanchez for
the Phillies.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Dodger fans get loud with two outs and they swinging
a mess in. Glass Now strikeout to end the first
and stranding rutters at the quarters.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Not very many hits. If there wasn't anything, it wouldn't
be really strung together.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, my co host Wesley Avula, both.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Pictures were dealing. Glasnow was dealing and Christopher Sanchez was dealing.
I mean he was giving it to the Dodgers. They
couldn't hit anything. They couldn't hit water out of a boat.
It was bad, bad, bad bad. Glasnow was locked in
for the most part. He did give up a double
du Schwarbian first sinning, but.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Got out of it, kept it up, kept it up
most of the game.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
And the Dodgers, when they did get some hits, they
couldn't string them together. They would get a hit, get
a guy on, nothing would happen of it, nothing would
come from it.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
These two starters were holding two of the best offenses
in baseball to goose Eggs Zero's first text I got
from West during this game. I hate this game. I
hate pitchers.
Speaker 7 (05:52):
Duels for me personally incredibly boring until it's not after
that you know, you get later in the game.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Later in the game, the inevitable happened. Glasnow had gone
as long as he could go, and Dodgers manager Dave
Roberts had no choice but to go to the bullpen.
By far our biggest area of concern for this postseason.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And then in the seventh we brought she had.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
In our strategy for dealing with our week bullpen has
been to mostly not use our bullpen guys, but instead
to use our starters, and so Glasnow was replaced by
Emmett Shehan, normally a starter in the seventh inning, and
this is when the Phillies drue first blood.
Speaker 7 (06:38):
JT got that hit right off the end of the
bat that he is going to fall the base hit
JT Realmuto and.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Then he ate into a double play right after that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Kepler on the ground. Freeman's out A second out there.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Man, she had missed it, and I think it goes
in the dugout. It does.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Emit Shean was covering first and was set up to
receive the ball for the force out that would complete
a double play. But as you've probably heard, baseball is
a game of inches, and this was the first illustration
of that truism in Game four of the NLDS, before
the one that dealt the fatal blow at the end.
(07:21):
We'll get to that in a moment.
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Super frustrating because the throw was made, but it was
a little bit off Shean would have been.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I don't think his foot was on the bag In.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Trying to position himself correctly to get the force out
at first, Shean ended up missing the throw from second base,
and when it sailed into the Phillies dugout. That gave
the runner an extra base, meaning there was a man
on second in scoring position.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Hot one fair ball hits the line and in the
score is Kepler on his way to second, goes Castianos.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
He's in there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's a double. The Phillies have grabbed the lead here
in game.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And cus Siano's double down the line and brought him in.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
It just was like, what the At that point, I
turned off the TV like I couldn't watch, might have
changed the channel for a second, went and walked the
Dogs and then asked you, Richie, to let me know
when they were back.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But then the Dodgers responded. In the bottom of the seventh,
Alex Call walked and Keiky Hernandez, who's always doing something
in the postseason, got a base hit.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And it's a hot shot crop base hit.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Kik Hernandez got the change up, did not miss it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It was first and second with one out, Andy Pajes
at the plate, he grounds out, but that advances the
runners to second and third and show Hayes coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Now you got a decision too, and this is the
sign of all metrifspect right here, and they're gonna put
him one.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They intentionally walk show hay to load the bases so
that there's a force out at any base, but then
let her started up. Mookie Bets draws a walk.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
That's how we got the run. That's how it tied it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Up, and that's how we got our first run and
tied the game.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A run is a run, no matter what.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
One run apiece. And we told you that we have
concerns about our bullpen, but then we had our secret weapon.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Come the eighth, they bring in Roki Sasaki.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Roki Sasaki, who log saves in both games one and
two in Philadelphia, and whose nickname in Japan, may I
remind you was Kaibutsu the monster.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Bred and Marsh's retired Sasaki is blowing through the village
battle on the game and he strikes out real Muto
and rookie Sasaki six up, six down.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Unfortunately, the Phillies had a secret weapon of their own,
Jesus Lozardo taking a page from our book. Normally a
starter came in to pitch for the Phillies and he
had the dodger's number.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Ato Todi. At a call straight three, Luzardo just carves him.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Up, even into the bullpen. The pitcher's duel continued, and
after Sasaki got nine up and nine down, Bessie came
in and thank goodness he was a down. Here he
comes and a straight You had a massy.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Cut on a sider.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Bessie a stands tall. He strikes out.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It was one one through the top of the tenth
and then the bottom of the tenth, and still in
the top of the eleventh, which brings us to the
bottom of the eleventh when it all came crashing down
beautifully and tragically in that way that only baseball can be.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That PITCHI calls the gyro slider Tommy Edmond into left
field a base hit, and that's a base.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Hit up the middle.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
keV on his way to third, Max Munsey has put
the winning run ninety feet away.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Tommy Edmund singled and was replaced by Hayesan Kim on
the bass paths and Max Munsey singled, and then keiy
A Hernandez worked a walk. Bases loaded. Andy Piece steps
in against o'riyan Kerkering. Kerkering, who is twenty four years old,
(11:43):
made sixty nine appearances for the Phillies during the regular season,
so he was a workhorse reliever, and he had a
very good three point three zero ERA, significantly better than
league average, and he was in the game at this
all important moment because he's one of the Phillies' best relievers.
(12:04):
Pa He steps into the box, Kurkering checks the runners,
stares in, gets the sign and comes set. He kicks
and fires a ninety six mile per hour sinker in
on the hands off the plate. Pa Hey swings straight
through it zho to one. He stares in, shakes once,
(12:28):
comes set and goes into his motion again. Another ninety
six mile an hour sinker Paye swings and he connects.
The pitch breaks Paye's back as the ball bounces back
toward the mound straight at Curkering. It takes one hop
and then lands just under his glove. He boots it.
(12:52):
But that's not the bad part. Picture the diamond from overhead.
The bases are loaded with two outs and everybody he's
on the move and they've been taking leads, so by
the time Kirkering is picking up the ball again, Haysan
Kim is halfway from third base to home plate, and
the two runners behind him are about halfway advanced too. Pajes,
(13:14):
on the other hand, is just getting out of the
left handed batter's box onto the base path as Philly's
catcher JT. Realmuto removes his catcher's mask with his right hand,
tossing it aside. He leaves his right arm outstretched and
points so that Kirkering can see him straight at first base,
(13:34):
where he's got more time to make a force out.
But instead of throwing to first or third or second,
Kirkering throws home badly way wide up the third base line,
and real Muto has no chance to get it. Haysan
Kim crosses home plate and his foot actually misses the plate,
(13:56):
but as the ball bounces around near the backstop, he
has more than enough time to double back and make
sure he's touched home plate for real, to score the
deciding run of the game. You know, one pitch Paus
grounds it back to Kirkery be getting.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Winding good scores and the Dodgers are going to the
championship days.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I mean, that's one of those moments that's gonna live
in history. And that was right in front of him too.
He didn't even look at first. Even if you're not
looking at first, you kind of know where the runner
is up the line, and he's like halfway there maybe.
(14:51):
As the Dodgers emptied their dugout and ran onto the
field to mob their teammates who are on the base
paths in celebration, Kirkering stood stock still in front of
the mound in the exact location he had thrown the
ball from, bent over at the waist, hands on his knees,
head straight down. So the Dodgers are advancing to the
(15:23):
National League Championship Series. That's a best of seven series,
the winner of which owns the National League pennant for
twenty twenty five and is headed to the World Series.
The Dodgers' opponent in the NLCS has yet to be
determined at the time of this writing. It'll either be
the Brewers or the Cubs, whoever wins Game five in
(15:45):
that series. After the break, will take a close look
at one of the most exciting developments we saw during
this NLDS, Shohei Otani on the mound in the postseason
for the very first time. Stay with us, all right, now,
(16:18):
I want to do a little segment on Show Hey
Otani as a pitcher, because we've just seen Show Hay's
postseason debut and he pitched great. And this at the
end of a year where we were seeing Show Hey
pitch as a Dodger for the first time. And so
if you've just been following the Dodgers, or if you've
just been following this show and are relatively new to baseball,
(16:41):
you might not know just how special and unique this is.
And I get asked a lot, but I guess because
I host a podcast called Dodger Blue Dream. Oh yeah,
I think I've heard of that show. Hey Otani. Guy,
He's special, right, he's like the Michael Jordan of baseball.
And I never know exactly how to reply because I'm like, yeah,
(17:03):
I mean, he's that good, So I guess he's like
Michael Jordan. But he's actually more than that. He's like
two Michael Jordan's because he both hits and pitches simultaneously,
and he's really really great at both. So he's like
two generational talents in one player. And you might know
(17:24):
that Aabe Ruth also pitched and hit at the major
league level, and to some extent that is analogous, but
Babe Ruth basically stopped pitching in order to hit. All
of his greatest home run seasons came after he stopped
pitching regularly, and for example, shohe hit fifty five home
(17:45):
runs this year, one less than the league lead, and
he had a two to eighty seven er on the mound. Babe,
on the other hand, never hit fifty homers in a
year where he pitched. The closest was in nineteen nineteen,
he hit twenty nine home runs and he pitched one
hundred and thirty three innings in his last year where
he was doing a significant amount of pitching, but all
(18:06):
of his thirty plus forty plus fifty plus home run
seasons came after he stopped pitching. Show Hay's doing both
at once. So let's break it down and appreciate for
a moment the two way player, the god that is
our show Hey Otani. When Sho hay signed to the
(18:30):
Dodgers in the twenty twenty four offseason, he also underwent
a major elbow surgery on his pitching arm, and so
during his first year on the team he would be
rehabbing from that injury and not able to pitch. In
twenty twenty four, show Hayes first year on the team,
we were only seeing him play one way, that is offensively,
(18:50):
and that was a beautiful thing to see. Otani Censor
of the Year.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
The other way tis.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
He hits towering home runs. He hit fifty four homers
last year, which was the most in the National League.
The next closest was Marcelo Zuna, who had thirty nine,
And to understand just how rare that really is, no
Dodger in the history of the Dodgers had ever hit
(19:23):
fifty in a season before. Never just thirty four players
in the history of the major leagues have ever hit
more than fifty homers in a season. Hank Aaron, who
passed Babe Ruth's all time career home run total and
now sits at number two on that list behind Barry Bonds,
never hit fifty in a single season, So fifty four
(19:45):
homers in his first year as a Dodger pretty significant.
And on top of that, because he wasn't pitching, Shohey
was focusing on stealing more bases. There they go, throw
it to third, beats him, but he got his sign.
He stole fifty nine bases last year, second overall in
(20:06):
the National League behind Elie de la Cruz, who is
one of the fastest players I've ever seen play baseball.
And to understand how rare that is, only seven Dodgers
in the history of the Dodgers have ever passed fifty
stolen bases in a single season since nineteen hundred. The
last Dodger to do it was De Strange Gordon in
(20:27):
twenty fourteen. And Mookie Betts, for example, who is a
five tool player, meaning among other things, he runs the
base as well and is fast. Mooki's career high of
stolen bases in a single season thirty eight, not fifty,
not even forty and so with those two totals, the
fifty four home runs and the fifty nine stolen bases,
(20:49):
Shohe went fifty to fifty in his first year as
a Dodger, the first player ever in the history of
the game to do that. Five other players have gone
on forty forty. And if you want to hear more
about this, you can check out our episodes This is
Almost forty forty forty forty Vision and shohe O Tani
fifty to fifty Ichibon, which we just republished on the
(21:12):
feed a couple weeks ago. And he did all of
this while rehabbing from his second major elbow surgery, building
himself back up to become a starting pitcher at the
major league level again. Which brings us to twenty twenty five,
the first year we got to see show Hay on
the bump aka the pitching mound as a Los Angeles Dodger,
(21:33):
and even though he was pitching at an elite level
this year, he continued to wow us offensively. Show Hey
hit fifty five home runs this year, one more than
his total last year and finishing second in the National
League behind Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies who hit fifty six,
and that made him just the sixth player in Major
(21:54):
League Baseball history to hit fifty home runs in two
consecutive years. But show hey only stole twenty bases in
twenty twenty five, and sure, that made him the first
player in history to hit fifty homers and steal twenty
bases in two consecutive seasons. But come on, I mean,
why didn't he go fifty to fifty again? The answer
(22:18):
is because he was pitching again.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Otani's ready, Trout's ready.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Three to two, Hey, stretch him out, Otani strikes out Trout,
and Japan's back on top of the baseball world.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
How when sho He first came to the major leagues
in twenty eighteen, he was mostly thought of as a
better pitcher than he was a hitter.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Sho Hey Otani decided not to go straight to the
major leagues, even though he didn't put a little bit
of thought into it.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Twenty years old, facing this lineup, just some.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Dead red gas right back or no goes down swinging.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You can find highlights of him striking out seven major
League baseball stars when he was just twenty years old
to two.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Pitch to ben Zobrist, swings and misses for strike three,
bold strike three to Carlos Santana. Thought that might have
been a little in and how over the top of
that this week strikes out, seventh strikeout to this point
for Otani.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
For Otani, it's like we got to see a whole
new player in twenty twenty five. Show Hey the pitcher,
And now you're starting to understand he's not just Michael Jordan.
He's to Michael Jordan's And you're probably thinking, how on
earth did this happen? How did we get here? What
is the story of show Hay the two way talent?
(23:54):
When he was growing up, show Hay was what in
Japan is known as a yakiyu show, a baseball obsessed kid.
As with so many players who make it to the
major leagues, it all started with his parents. Tou Otani
played baseball at the amateur level. Toro was an outfielder
(24:15):
in an industrial league in Japan, playing for a team
sponsored by the local Mitsubishi plant in Oshu, about three
hundred miles north of Tokyo, where shohe grew up. But
according to an article I found online, after a shoulder injury,
At twenty five, Toru took a step back from baseball
and went to work full time at the factory. Shohei's
(24:38):
mother was also athletic. She played badminton at an advanced level,
and Shohey's older brother also played baseball. Shohi's dad has
been quoted as saying that he felt like he was
too busy with work to teach Shohei's older brother how
to play. They didn't even have time to play catch
because of that. Toro has been quoted as saying, I
(24:59):
was determined to teach show Hay baseball as hard as
I could. That's the translation that I found online. Toro
was still working at the Mitsubishi plant the night shift,
but he carved out the time on weekends to play
baseball with show Hay. Toro's coaching was thorough. One article
reads the advice he gave to his son as a
(25:21):
pitcher was to adopt a clean form and place his
fingers firmly on the seam of the ball when pitching.
As for batting, his father taught him to strike with
the meat of the bat. So early on, at the
very beginning, we already see show Hay playing two ways.
This isn't unusual, though not at this early stage. Every
(25:45):
little kid both pitches and hits in little league. Even
I did both, and it's common for all the very
most talented, dedicated, and fortunate kids who make it all
the way to the major leagues to come up as
two way players. Through the early stages, a lot of
major leaguers were little kid pitchers who ended up moving
(26:05):
to other positions and vice versa. Sometimes this happens at
as late a stage as in the minor leagues. When
you're drafted, major league teams ask you to decide is
it going to be pitching or hitting? But nobody has
ever played two ways at the major league level. But
that was young Shoh's dream.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
Gonna. You know, I feel like I was more talented
as a hitter growing up, and it was hard for
me to pitch, actually, so I feel like I'm more
of like a hitter who could learned how to pitch
more than the pitcher learning how to hit.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
What was the word du fish that you used in there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
While at Hanamaki Higashi High School, when Shohei was just
eighteen years old, show he threw a pitch that registered
at one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour. That's ninety
nine point four miles per hour. That set a record.
So it's a big deal to throw one hundred. If
(27:29):
you do it, pretty much guarantees that you can make
it to the big leagues as a pitcher. And at
this point, Shohey is still in high school. His senior year,
that same year, he hit a gargantuan home run on
his high school field that sailed way up over the
fence and over a cops of trees behind it that
is still talked about to this day. This is when
(27:52):
sho Hay first proved that he could excel at both
hitting and pitching simultaneously. It was metaphorically speaking nito ru,
the two sword samurai fighting style that's used to describe
a two way player in Japan. It's an advanced fighting style,
and in the baseball context, at the tender age of eighteen,
(28:16):
shohy had already proved that he could excel at it.
He even preferred to do both simultaneously, and that became
his goal to take that all the way to the
big leagues. Otani was different from the beginning, said Jim Allen,
a Westerner who's covered baseball in Japan for more than
(28:38):
thirty years. He was going to hit and pitch, and
there was such controversy about it in Japan, fans loved it.
Out of high school, young Shoh held the press conference
announcing that he would be going straight to America, an
unprecedented move for a young Japanese baseball player who hadn't
(28:59):
even gone pro. Show Hay had interests from many Major
League teams, including the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers,
but specializing at a specific position is just part of
the deal if you want to be in the major leagues.
MLB teams ask their two way prospects to choose a
(29:23):
focus either pitching or hitting, even before developing them in
their minor league systems. Show Hay had the talent to
go to America fresh out of high school, but it
would be at the risk of maintaining his two way style.
Apart from the implausibility of the idea of a player
excelling both as a hitter and as a pitcher professionally,
(29:46):
which had never been done before, there were real risks.
Let's talk a little.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Bit about a couple areas of his body that could
be affected by hitting and pitching.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
The risk of injury goes way up. Yeah, so we've
seen an uptick and oblique injury and hitters in the
past couple of seasons in Major League Baseball. And then
from an organizational standpoint, you're dealing with a player who
is so young, his prefrontal cortex hadn't fully developed yet,
and you're making an investment. And if you're letting him
play two ways, you're risking diluting his potential of excelling
(30:18):
at either of these two things. But MLB teams were
still interested in show Hey. He was just that good.
And in the meantime, the Nipon ham Fighters, a team
in Japan's Nipon Professional Baseball League, the MLB equivalent in Japan,
went through the process of drafting show Hay, which was
(30:40):
their prerogative based on the various rules and regulations of
Japanese baseball. The ham Fighters put together a presentation entitled
the Path to Realizing sho Hey Otani's Dream, and to
quote an article from MLB dot Com, it was a
carefully calculated sales pitch about the travails of rookie ball
(31:01):
players in the States. They put together a video, said
Robert Whiting, who's written extensively about baseball in Japan. It
showed the really tough stuff that young minor leaguers have
to go through, and especially what Otani would have to
go through, the lack of Japanese restaurants, the eighteen hour
bus rides, things like that. But it also highlighted how
(31:22):
he would be an instant star with Nipon ham. Whiting continued,
how family and friends would be there, how he would
have this comfortable cocoon and they would help him train
to get to the major leagues as a two way player.
Aine ekl American holde come thing, not that you kill.
(31:48):
Young Shohei decided to stay in Japan. Gonenkan ariato Ariato.
Otani's pitching stardom was meteoric according to MLB dot com,
(32:13):
but his average was low, as was his slugging percentage.
But in terms of hitting, it wasn't clicking right away
for show Hey after he went pro, and he was
quicker to prove himself as a pitcher than as a hitter.
Mad to get this guy on the way. In twenty fourteen,
he had an opportunity to pitch on the world stage
(32:34):
against major League baseball stars in an exhibition game. Otani,
the course has had high price for all parts off
my spook. We'll see you play in the field and
in this tournament, and he struck out Yasiel Puigue, Justin
Morneau and Evan Longoria.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Writes book Pig Upitsu.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But the following year he struggled even more at the plate,
hitting just two two. According to MLB dot Com, he
did not put both sides of his game together until
twenty sixteen, four years after going pro. That year, Otani's
slash line was three twenty two, four, sixteen, five eighty eight,
(33:16):
and he hit twenty two home runs, and as a pitcher,
he had a one eighty six er and struck out
one hundred and seventy four in just one hundred and
forty innings. He was named MVP of the Pacific League
and he led the hand Fighters to a Japanese series title.
Shotani known as the Japanese Babe route.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
He's going to be a difference maker.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
He's coming to America, to America, the America, the America,
and he's been playing both sides of the game ever since.
Dodger Blue Dream is written and per used by me
(34:01):
Richard Parks, the third My co host is Chef wes Avula.
Original music in this episode by William Ryan Fritch, Jonathan Snipes,
The Blasting Company, and by me. This episode was story
edited by Caitlin Esh production assistance from Tyler Hill Dodger.
(34:21):
Blue Dream is produced in partnership with iheart's My Cultura
podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Dodger Blue Dream. I'm Richard Parks the third, the.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Bases loaded in two outs to the bottom of the
eleven but tied Game four.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, this is postseason baseball at its finest, most stressful.
Last night, after ten and two thirds innings of baseball,
something insane happened. Oh my goodness walked in. The bases
were loaded, there were two outs and it was the
(00:32):
bottom of the eleventh inning at Dodger Stadium, loaded for
Andy Pye and again selection very poor, two out on
bases loaded to if we score, we win the National
League Division Series and advance to the Championship Series. And
(00:57):
the Phillies season is over. And guess what happened? You
o one pitch paus grounds.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It back to Kirk.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Ten scores and the Dodgers are going to the Championship dys.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh wow, oh wow wow.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I mean, that's one of those moments that's gonna live
in history. Going into Game one, this NLDS was the
most hyped postseason series by far because it was the
two best teams of their era, dynastically speaking, at their peak,
(01:48):
with the biggest stars on both sides, the best pitchers,
the guys with the batting titles, the Biggest Sluggers. It's
got the East Coast versus West Coast thing going on.
These are legacy franchises. I mean even the uniforms look
good together. You got the Phillies red against the Dodger blue.
Philadelphia fans are always going nuts. Citizens Bank Park is
(02:11):
famous for that. So the atmosphere was guaranteed to be electric.
And there's also a sense of urgency because, on top
of everything else, nobody's getting any younger here, and these
are athletes. Their window to perform at the peak of
their powers is very short, if not now.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
When I think next round, Dodgers Phillies, that's a world series.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
This is USA Today Beat writer and MLB insider Bob
Nightingale interviewed by the Bleed Loss podcast just before the series.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Because I thinks a coin flip, who's a better team.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
Dodgers are Phillies right now.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Give a slight edge to Dodgers.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
If they get past that round. How far do you
think they could get?
Speaker 5 (02:53):
I think whoever gets that past that round wins the
world series.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
World series, well, the most typed series, and it delivered,
especially in Game four. Last night's game. The deciding game,
which the Dodgers won in the most improbable way in
the eleventh inning by a score of two to one.
So today on the show, we're going to take a
look at that game and a little bit of the
(03:17):
rest of the series and take you through what happened,
and then after a break, we're going to dive in
and focus on one of the most compelling things we
saw in this series, which is sho hey Otani. The
Dodgers two way star on the mound for the first
time in the postseason, making history. But first, the Dodgers
(03:39):
win a wild wild NLDS Thursday, October ninth, twenty twenty five,
(04:02):
Dodgers Stadium, the NLDS Game four, Dodgers are up two
games to one over the Phillies. They just need one
more to advance.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Defensive swing up and in with a fastball, and this
one starts with a bang lord Tyler Glassnow.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
This was a pitchers duel. As we're games one in
two of this series, Game three not so much. But
we're not gonna talk much about Game three and the
Dodgers eight to three loss at home with Clayton Kershaw
getting shellacked. We're not gonna spend much time on that
at all, because we are going to the NLCS and
it's all thanks to the game four win. It was
(04:42):
Tyler glass Now for the Dodgers and Christopher Sanchez for
the Phillies.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Dodger fans get loud with two outs and they swinging
a mess in. Glass Now strikeout to end the first
and stranding rutters at the quarters.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Not very many hits. If there wasn't anything, it wouldn't
be really strung together.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, my co host Wesley Avula, both.
Speaker 7 (05:06):
Pictures were dealing. Glasnow was dealing and Christopher Sanchez was dealing.
I mean he was giving it to the Dodgers. They
couldn't hit anything. They couldn't hit water out of a boat.
It was bad, bad, bad bad. Glasnow was locked in
for the most part. He did give up a double
du Schwarbian first sinning, but.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Got out of it, kept it up, kept it up
most of the game.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
And the Dodgers, when they did get some hits, they
couldn't string them together. They would get a hit, get
a guy on, nothing would happen of it, nothing would
come from it.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
These two starters were holding two of the best offenses
in baseball to goose Eggs Zero's first text I got
from West during this game. I hate this game. I
hate pitchers.
Speaker 7 (05:52):
Duels for me personally incredibly boring until it's not after
that you know, you get later in the game.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Later in the game, the inevitable happened. Glasnow had gone
as long as he could go, and Dodgers manager Dave
Roberts had no choice but to go to the bullpen.
By far our biggest area of concern for this postseason.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And then in the seventh we brought she had.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
In our strategy for dealing with our week bullpen has
been to mostly not use our bullpen guys, but instead
to use our starters, and so Glasnow was replaced by
Emmett Shehan, normally a starter in the seventh inning, and
this is when the Phillies drue first blood.
Speaker 7 (06:38):
JT got that hit right off the end of the
bat that he is going to fall the base hit
JT Realmuto and.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Then he ate into a double play right after that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Kepler on the ground. Freeman's out A second out there.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Man, she had missed it, and I think it goes
in the dugout. It does.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Emit Shean was covering first and was set up to
receive the ball for the force out that would complete
a double play. But as you've probably heard, baseball is
a game of inches, and this was the first illustration
of that truism in Game four of the NLDS, before
the one that dealt the fatal blow at the end.
(07:21):
We'll get to that in a moment.
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Super frustrating because the throw was made, but it was
a little bit off Shean would have been.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I don't think his foot was on the bag In.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Trying to position himself correctly to get the force out
at first, Shean ended up missing the throw from second base,
and when it sailed into the Phillies dugout. That gave
the runner an extra base, meaning there was a man
on second in scoring position.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Hot one fair ball hits the line and in the
score is Kepler on his way to second, goes Castianos.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
He's in there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's a double. The Phillies have grabbed the lead here
in game.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And cus Siano's double down the line and brought him in.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
It just was like, what the At that point, I
turned off the TV like I couldn't watch, might have
changed the channel for a second, went and walked the
Dogs and then asked you, Richie, to let me know
when they were back.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But then the Dodgers responded. In the bottom of the seventh,
Alex Call walked and Keiky Hernandez, who's always doing something
in the postseason, got a base hit.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And it's a hot shot crop base hit.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Kik Hernandez got the change up, did not miss it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It was first and second with one out, Andy Pajes
at the plate, he grounds out, but that advances the
runners to second and third and show Hayes coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Now you got a decision too, and this is the
sign of all metrifspect right here, and they're gonna put
him one.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
They intentionally walk show hay to load the bases so
that there's a force out at any base, but then
let her started up. Mookie Bets draws a walk.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
That's how we got the run. That's how it tied it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Up, and that's how we got our first run and
tied the game.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
A run is a run, no matter what.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
One run apiece. And we told you that we have
concerns about our bullpen, but then we had our secret weapon.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Come the eighth, they bring in Roki Sasaki.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Roki Sasaki, who log saves in both games one and
two in Philadelphia, and whose nickname in Japan, may I
remind you was Kaibutsu the monster.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Bred and Marsh's retired Sasaki is blowing through the village
battle on the game and he strikes out real Muto
and rookie Sasaki six up, six down.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Unfortunately, the Phillies had a secret weapon of their own,
Jesus Lozardo taking a page from our book. Normally a
starter came in to pitch for the Phillies and he
had the dodger's number.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Ato Todi. At a call straight three, Luzardo just carves him.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Up, even into the bullpen. The pitcher's duel continued, and
after Sasaki got nine up and nine down, Bessie came
in and thank goodness he was a down. Here he
comes and a straight You had a massy.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
Cut on a sider.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Bessie a stands tall. He strikes out.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It was one one through the top of the tenth
and then the bottom of the tenth, and still in
the top of the eleventh, which brings us to the
bottom of the eleventh when it all came crashing down
beautifully and tragically in that way that only baseball can be.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That PITCHI calls the gyro slider Tommy Edmond into left
field a base hit, and that's a base.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Hit up the middle.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
keV on his way to third, Max Munsey has put
the winning run ninety feet away.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Tommy Edmund singled and was replaced by Hayesan Kim on
the bass paths and Max Munsey singled, and then keiy
A Hernandez worked a walk. Bases loaded. Andy Piece steps
in against o'riyan Kerkering. Kerkering, who is twenty four years old,
(11:43):
made sixty nine appearances for the Phillies during the regular season,
so he was a workhorse reliever, and he had a
very good three point three zero ERA, significantly better than
league average, and he was in the game at this
all important moment because he's one of the Phillies' best relievers.
(12:04):
Pa He steps into the box, Kurkering checks the runners,
stares in, gets the sign and comes set. He kicks
and fires a ninety six mile per hour sinker in
on the hands off the plate. Pa Hey swings straight
through it zho to one. He stares in, shakes once,
(12:28):
comes set and goes into his motion again. Another ninety
six mile an hour sinker Paye swings and he connects.
The pitch breaks Paye's back as the ball bounces back
toward the mound straight at Curkering. It takes one hop
and then lands just under his glove. He boots it.
(12:52):
But that's not the bad part. Picture the diamond from overhead.
The bases are loaded with two outs and everybody he's
on the move and they've been taking leads, so by
the time Kirkering is picking up the ball again, Haysan
Kim is halfway from third base to home plate, and
the two runners behind him are about halfway advanced too. Pajes,
(13:14):
on the other hand, is just getting out of the
left handed batter's box onto the base path as Philly's
catcher JT. Realmuto removes his catcher's mask with his right hand,
tossing it aside. He leaves his right arm outstretched and
points so that Kirkering can see him straight at first base,
(13:34):
where he's got more time to make a force out.
But instead of throwing to first or third or second,
Kirkering throws home badly way wide up the third base line,
and real Muto has no chance to get it. Haysan
Kim crosses home plate and his foot actually misses the plate,
(13:56):
but as the ball bounces around near the backstop, he
has more than enough time to double back and make
sure he's touched home plate for real, to score the
deciding run of the game. You know, one pitch Paus
grounds it back to Kirkery be getting.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Winding good scores and the Dodgers are going to the
championship days.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I mean, that's one of those moments that's gonna live
in history. And that was right in front of him too.
He didn't even look at first. Even if you're not
looking at first, you kind of know where the runner
is up the line, and he's like halfway there maybe.
(14:51):
As the Dodgers emptied their dugout and ran onto the
field to mob their teammates who are on the base
paths in celebration, Kirkering stood stock still in front of
the mound in the exact location he had thrown the
ball from, bent over at the waist, hands on his knees,
head straight down. So the Dodgers are advancing to the
(15:23):
National League Championship Series. That's a best of seven series,
the winner of which owns the National League pennant for
twenty twenty five and is headed to the World Series.
The Dodgers' opponent in the NLCS has yet to be
determined at the time of this writing. It'll either be
the Brewers or the Cubs, whoever wins Game five in
(15:45):
that series. After the break, will take a close look
at one of the most exciting developments we saw during
this NLDS, Shohei Otani on the mound in the postseason
for the very first time. Stay with us, all right, now,
(16:18):
I want to do a little segment on Show Hey
Otani as a pitcher, because we've just seen Show Hay's
postseason debut and he pitched great. And this at the
end of a year where we were seeing Show Hey
pitch as a Dodger for the first time. And so
if you've just been following the Dodgers, or if you've
just been following this show and are relatively new to baseball,
(16:41):
you might not know just how special and unique this is.
And I get asked a lot, but I guess because
I host a podcast called Dodger Blue Dream. Oh yeah,
I think I've heard of that show. Hey Otani. Guy,
He's special, right, he's like the Michael Jordan of baseball.
And I never know exactly how to reply because I'm like, yeah,
(17:03):
I mean, he's that good, So I guess he's like
Michael Jordan. But he's actually more than that. He's like
two Michael Jordan's because he both hits and pitches simultaneously,
and he's really really great at both. So he's like
two generational talents in one player. And you might know
(17:24):
that Aabe Ruth also pitched and hit at the major
league level, and to some extent that is analogous, but
Babe Ruth basically stopped pitching in order to hit. All
of his greatest home run seasons came after he stopped
pitching regularly, and for example, shohe hit fifty five home
(17:45):
runs this year, one less than the league lead, and
he had a two to eighty seven er on the mound. Babe,
on the other hand, never hit fifty homers in a
year where he pitched. The closest was in nineteen nineteen,
he hit twenty nine home runs and he pitched one
hundred and thirty three innings in his last year where
he was doing a significant amount of pitching, but all
(18:06):
of his thirty plus forty plus fifty plus home run
seasons came after he stopped pitching. Show Hay's doing both
at once. So let's break it down and appreciate for
a moment the two way player, the god that is
our show Hey Otani. When Sho hay signed to the
(18:30):
Dodgers in the twenty twenty four offseason, he also underwent
a major elbow surgery on his pitching arm, and so
during his first year on the team he would be
rehabbing from that injury and not able to pitch. In
twenty twenty four, show Hayes first year on the team,
we were only seeing him play one way, that is offensively,
(18:50):
and that was a beautiful thing to see. Otani Censor
of the Year.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
The other way tis.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
He hits towering home runs. He hit fifty four homers
last year, which was the most in the National League.
The next closest was Marcelo Zuna, who had thirty nine,
And to understand just how rare that really is, no
Dodger in the history of the Dodgers had ever hit
(19:23):
fifty in a season before. Never just thirty four players
in the history of the major leagues have ever hit
more than fifty homers in a season. Hank Aaron, who
passed Babe Ruth's all time career home run total and
now sits at number two on that list behind Barry Bonds,
never hit fifty in a single season, So fifty four
(19:45):
homers in his first year as a Dodger pretty significant.
And on top of that, because he wasn't pitching, Shohey
was focusing on stealing more bases. There they go, throw
it to third, beats him, but he got his sign.
He stole fifty nine bases last year, second overall in
(20:06):
the National League behind Elie de la Cruz, who is
one of the fastest players I've ever seen play baseball.
And to understand how rare that is, only seven Dodgers
in the history of the Dodgers have ever passed fifty
stolen bases in a single season since nineteen hundred. The
last Dodger to do it was De Strange Gordon in
(20:27):
twenty fourteen. And Mookie Betts, for example, who is a
five tool player, meaning among other things, he runs the
base as well and is fast. Mooki's career high of
stolen bases in a single season thirty eight, not fifty,
not even forty and so with those two totals, the
fifty four home runs and the fifty nine stolen bases,
(20:49):
Shohe went fifty to fifty in his first year as
a Dodger, the first player ever in the history of
the game to do that. Five other players have gone
on forty forty. And if you want to hear more
about this, you can check out our episodes This is
Almost forty forty forty forty Vision and shohe O Tani
fifty to fifty Ichibon, which we just republished on the
(21:12):
feed a couple weeks ago. And he did all of
this while rehabbing from his second major elbow surgery, building
himself back up to become a starting pitcher at the
major league level again. Which brings us to twenty twenty five,
the first year we got to see show Hay on
the bump aka the pitching mound as a Los Angeles Dodger,
(21:33):
and even though he was pitching at an elite level
this year, he continued to wow us offensively. Show Hey
hit fifty five home runs this year, one more than
his total last year and finishing second in the National
League behind Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies who hit fifty six,
and that made him just the sixth player in Major
(21:54):
League Baseball history to hit fifty home runs in two
consecutive years. But show hey only stole twenty bases in
twenty twenty five, and sure, that made him the first
player in history to hit fifty homers and steal twenty
bases in two consecutive seasons. But come on, I mean,
why didn't he go fifty to fifty again? The answer
(22:18):
is because he was pitching again.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Otani's ready, Trout's ready.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Three to two, Hey, stretch him out, Otani strikes out Trout,
and Japan's back on top of the baseball world.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
How when sho He first came to the major leagues
in twenty eighteen, he was mostly thought of as a
better pitcher than he was a hitter.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Sho Hey Otani decided not to go straight to the
major leagues, even though he didn't put a little bit
of thought into it.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Twenty years old, facing this lineup, just some.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Dead red gas right back or no goes down swinging.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You can find highlights of him striking out seven major
League baseball stars when he was just twenty years old
to two.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Pitch to ben Zobrist, swings and misses for strike three,
bold strike three to Carlos Santana. Thought that might have
been a little in and how over the top of
that this week strikes out, seventh strikeout to this point
for Otani.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
For Otani, it's like we got to see a whole
new player in twenty twenty five. Show Hey the pitcher,
And now you're starting to understand he's not just Michael Jordan.
He's to Michael Jordan's And you're probably thinking, how on
earth did this happen? How did we get here? What
is the story of show Hay the two way talent?
(23:54):
When he was growing up, show Hay was what in
Japan is known as a yakiyu show, a baseball obsessed kid.
As with so many players who make it to the
major leagues, it all started with his parents. Tou Otani
played baseball at the amateur level. Toro was an outfielder
(24:15):
in an industrial league in Japan, playing for a team
sponsored by the local Mitsubishi plant in Oshu, about three
hundred miles north of Tokyo, where shohe grew up. But
according to an article I found online, after a shoulder injury,
At twenty five, Toru took a step back from baseball
and went to work full time at the factory. Shohei's
(24:38):
mother was also athletic. She played badminton at an advanced level,
and Shohey's older brother also played baseball. Shohi's dad has
been quoted as saying that he felt like he was
too busy with work to teach Shohei's older brother how
to play. They didn't even have time to play catch
because of that. Toro has been quoted as saying, I
(24:59):
was determined to teach show Hay baseball as hard as
I could. That's the translation that I found online. Toro
was still working at the Mitsubishi plant the night shift,
but he carved out the time on weekends to play
baseball with show Hay. Toro's coaching was thorough. One article
reads the advice he gave to his son as a
(25:21):
pitcher was to adopt a clean form and place his
fingers firmly on the seam of the ball when pitching.
As for batting, his father taught him to strike with
the meat of the bat. So early on, at the
very beginning, we already see show Hay playing two ways.
This isn't unusual, though not at this early stage. Every
(25:45):
little kid both pitches and hits in little league. Even
I did both, and it's common for all the very
most talented, dedicated, and fortunate kids who make it all
the way to the major leagues to come up as
two way players. Through the early stages, a lot of
major leaguers were little kid pitchers who ended up moving
(26:05):
to other positions and vice versa. Sometimes this happens at
as late a stage as in the minor leagues. When
you're drafted, major league teams ask you to decide is
it going to be pitching or hitting? But nobody has
ever played two ways at the major league level. But
that was young Shoh's dream.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
Gonna. You know, I feel like I was more talented
as a hitter growing up, and it was hard for
me to pitch, actually, so I feel like I'm more
of like a hitter who could learned how to pitch
more than the pitcher learning how to hit.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
What was the word du fish that you used in there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
While at Hanamaki Higashi High School, when Shohei was just
eighteen years old, show he threw a pitch that registered
at one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour. That's ninety
nine point four miles per hour. That set a record.
So it's a big deal to throw one hundred. If
(27:29):
you do it, pretty much guarantees that you can make
it to the big leagues as a pitcher. And at
this point, Shohey is still in high school. His senior year,
that same year, he hit a gargantuan home run on
his high school field that sailed way up over the
fence and over a cops of trees behind it that
is still talked about to this day. This is when
(27:52):
sho Hay first proved that he could excel at both
hitting and pitching simultaneously. It was metaphorically speaking nito ru,
the two sword samurai fighting style that's used to describe
a two way player in Japan. It's an advanced fighting style,
and in the baseball context, at the tender age of eighteen,
(28:16):
shohy had already proved that he could excel at it.
He even preferred to do both simultaneously, and that became
his goal to take that all the way to the
big leagues. Otani was different from the beginning, said Jim Allen,
a Westerner who's covered baseball in Japan for more than
(28:38):
thirty years. He was going to hit and pitch, and
there was such controversy about it in Japan, fans loved it.
Out of high school, young Shoh held the press conference
announcing that he would be going straight to America, an
unprecedented move for a young Japanese baseball player who hadn't
(28:59):
even gone pro. Show Hay had interests from many Major
League teams, including the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers,
but specializing at a specific position is just part of
the deal if you want to be in the major leagues.
MLB teams ask their two way prospects to choose a
(29:23):
focus either pitching or hitting, even before developing them in
their minor league systems. Show Hay had the talent to
go to America fresh out of high school, but it
would be at the risk of maintaining his two way style.
Apart from the implausibility of the idea of a player
excelling both as a hitter and as a pitcher professionally,
(29:46):
which had never been done before, there were real risks.
Let's talk a little.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Bit about a couple areas of his body that could
be affected by hitting and pitching.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
The risk of injury goes way up. Yeah, so we've
seen an uptick and oblique injury and hitters in the
past couple of seasons in Major League Baseball. And then
from an organizational standpoint, you're dealing with a player who
is so young, his prefrontal cortex hadn't fully developed yet,
and you're making an investment. And if you're letting him
play two ways, you're risking diluting his potential of excelling
(30:18):
at either of these two things. But MLB teams were
still interested in show Hey. He was just that good.
And in the meantime, the Nipon ham Fighters, a team
in Japan's Nipon Professional Baseball League, the MLB equivalent in Japan,
went through the process of drafting show Hay, which was
(30:40):
their prerogative based on the various rules and regulations of
Japanese baseball. The ham Fighters put together a presentation entitled
the Path to Realizing sho Hey Otani's Dream, and to
quote an article from MLB dot Com, it was a
carefully calculated sales pitch about the travails of rookie ball
(31:01):
players in the States. They put together a video, said
Robert Whiting, who's written extensively about baseball in Japan. It
showed the really tough stuff that young minor leaguers have
to go through, and especially what Otani would have to
go through, the lack of Japanese restaurants, the eighteen hour
bus rides, things like that. But it also highlighted how
(31:22):
he would be an instant star with Nipon ham. Whiting continued,
how family and friends would be there, how he would
have this comfortable cocoon and they would help him train
to get to the major leagues as a two way player.
Aine ekl American holde come thing, not that you kill.
(31:48):
Young Shohei decided to stay in Japan. Gonenkan ariato Ariato.
Otani's pitching stardom was meteoric according to MLB dot com,
(32:13):
but his average was low, as was his slugging percentage.
But in terms of hitting, it wasn't clicking right away
for show Hey after he went pro, and he was
quicker to prove himself as a pitcher than as a hitter.
Mad to get this guy on the way. In twenty fourteen,
he had an opportunity to pitch on the world stage
(32:34):
against major League baseball stars in an exhibition game. Otani,
the course has had high price for all parts off
my spook. We'll see you play in the field and
in this tournament, and he struck out Yasiel Puigue, Justin
Morneau and Evan Longoria.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Writes book Pig Upitsu.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But the following year he struggled even more at the plate,
hitting just two two. According to MLB dot Com, he
did not put both sides of his game together until
twenty sixteen, four years after going pro. That year, Otani's
slash line was three twenty two, four, sixteen, five eighty eight,
(33:16):
and he hit twenty two home runs, and as a pitcher,
he had a one eighty six er and struck out
one hundred and seventy four in just one hundred and
forty innings. He was named MVP of the Pacific League
and he led the hand Fighters to a Japanese series title.
Shotani known as the Japanese Babe route.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
He's going to be a difference maker.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
He's coming to America, to America, the America, the America,
and he's been playing both sides of the game ever since.
Dodger Blue Dream is written and per used by me
(34:01):
Richard Parks, the third My co host is Chef wes Avula.
Original music in this episode by William Ryan Fritch, Jonathan Snipes,
The Blasting Company, and by me. This episode was story
edited by Caitlin Esh production assistance from Tyler Hill Dodger.
(34:21):
Blue Dream is produced in partnership with iheart's My Cultura
podcast network. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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