Yeah it’s kind of crazy for two teams to open a season nine days before everyone else. Wierd still to have them go about business as usual for another week after this before everyone catches up, but here we are.
It’s two real baseball games in Japan to open baseball’s 2025 season. You couldn’t have chosen two better teams for this visit. The Dodgers and Cubs offer up significant Japanese representation.
And apparantly they know exactly what to offer up. Who’s saying no to Sushi in Japan with Shohei Ohtani and friends? By the way, attendance was manditory.
Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto hosted a sushi team dinner for the Dodgers while the team is in Tokyo this week pic.twitter.com/yuV0U0Yhm6
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) March 16, 2025
Three Japanese Starting Pitchers
Two games, four starting pitchers and three of them are from Japan. That’s not counting Ohtani who’s still coming back from shoulder surgery and won’t pitch for another little while.
Ohtani will hit though as he already has, clubbing a long home run in an exhibition game against the Yomiuri Giants on the weekend before over 42,000 at the Tokyo Dome.
The Dodgers and Cubs kick things off Tuesday at 7:10 pm Tokyo time (6:10 a.m. EST) with the Dodgers Yoshinobu Yamamoto against the Cubs Shota Imanaga.
The second game of the series features baseball’s newest Japanese star, the much heralded Roki Sasaki will make his major league debut on a mound he knows well. The Cubs counter with Justin Steele.
MLB Growing the sport
MLB continues to play games outside of their 30 regular home parks. Last year making stops in Seoul, Mexico City, London and Santo Domingo.
It’s not like they have to do anything to push fans in Japan. With Ohtani and the Dodgers in the playoffs, there were more fans watching in Japan than in the U.S. even with games starting at nine a.m.
You throw in an accomplished hitter like the Cubs Seiya Suzuki and you have hometown heroes on both sides, on the mound and at the plate for two days in a jammed Tokyo Dome.
It can’t hurt the future of baseball in Japan either as they keep turning out star level players. Roki Sasaki’s Wednesday debut is just the latest highest level first impression that the entire baseball world has been talking about for years.
