Tokyo – For a while, it felt like everything in Japan had held its collective breath. When the sheet dies, Tokyo Dome is known worldwide for its energy and electrical atmosphere. A bat in shoe hei then connected by a curveball, and a crowd erupted on a line drive to the right field.
The Dodgers international megastar was the first major leaguer to play in his home soil, ordering a welcoming hit for Los Angeles, setting the stage for the team’s thrilling 4-1 comeback for the Chicago Cubs in the opening game of the 2025 MLB season.
At this moment, both teams traveled over 6,000 miles, making the journey to the opening day nearly a year. None of the other 28 teams in Major League Baseball needed to travel around the world to play two games before returning to the Pacific to increase their spring training games.
There was no need to arrive for spring training a week earlier. It ended it weakly, breaking normal routines and disrupt life due to some games on the other side of the world. But no one else is Shohei Ohtani and real-life World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
Two historic franchises collided under Tokyo’s lighting in front of a crammed home in a city bustling with baseball heat. The 2025 MLB Tokyo Series was its best Japanese baseball celebration. Five Japanese-born players will compete on the active roster and perform in the series.
This was a series between two iconic baseball franchises, but it was still an Otani show.
Otani is not famous in his home country. He is an A-list celebrities, rock star, and cultural icons all caught up in one. In the two-game series, more than dozens of different commercials featuring Ohatani flashed on a Tokyo TV screen. His face is featured on signs, taxis, taxis, subway trains, and storefront windows.
Fans cried out as Otani stepped into the plate. They all pulled out their phones to record all his movements and held a massive breath between each pitch. They attacked, aahed with every ball he had put in play, and gasped as he attacked.
Therefore, after the flag was spread out and the national anthem played by Japanese musician Yoshiki was completed, the introduction of Pokemon and Many Pikachu danced across the diamondsbaseball was finally played in the 2025 MLB season.
The game has actually counted since the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series held at Yankee Stadium on October 30th, and LA’s title defense officially began.
Ohtani finished the game 2-5 with singles, doubles and two runs. His first hit of the 2025 season, line drive to right field, was at the top of five innings.
Tommy Edman tied the game with a line drive to the left field, and Otani scored a Go-Ard run on an incorrect throw by the Cubs’ two baseman John Berty.
Teoscar Hernandez added insurance at the ninth top.
That’s all the Dodgers need, as the pitching staff did the rest. Anthony Banda, Ben Casparius, Blake Treinen and Free Agent Acquisition Tanner Scott combined four shutout innings to earn his first save on Dodger Blue.
Yamamoto knows what it’s like to travel around the world to compete in a baseball game, and is no longer a rookie with world weight on his shoulders. After the dominant postseason, when he was the ace of the Dodgers’ injuries, Yamamoto appeared as the ace of the 2025 staff as the pitching staff filled with World Series-winning winners.
Tokyo, Japan – March 18: Yoshinobu #18 of the Dodgers in Los Angeles responds after bottoming five innings in the MLB Tokyo Series game held at Tokyo Dome on March 18, 2025. (Photo: MasterPress/Getty Images)
Despite being a middle-aged child in the proverb, the “Big Brother” Otani and his brother, Sazaki brother, Yamamoto’s three-pitch mix of fastball, curveball and splitter kept the Cubs batsmen in balance all night. His only wound was Miguel Amaya’s RBI double at the second bottom.
In the opposite mirror from his first start of the 2024 season, Yamamoto allowed one run with three hits in five innings, four strikeouts. He seized the opportunity in his home country and won a victory over his compatriot Castle Imanaga on the first full-day start date to begin the first Japan match in MLB history.
Both teams will play again tomorrow, but memories of the game last a lifetime, and for the 42,635 fans attending Tokyo Dome, they will remember it for years to come.
