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Shohei Ohtani Shares What's Difficult About Playoff Baseball After Postseason Debut

Seven seasons into his MLB career, Ohtani finally made his postseason arrival.

Josh Wilson

Ohtani hits a home run in Game 1 of the NLDS
Ohtani hits a home run in Game 1 of the NLDS / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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It really didn't look too hard for Shohei Ohtani on Saturday night, who went 2-for-5 with three runs batted in in the first game of the postseason for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the first-ever MLB postseason game for Ohtani. The Dodgers won, 7-5, on their home field.

Ohtani, of course, has not played for a team that has qualified for the postseason to this point, despite winning two MVP awards with the Los Angeles Angels in 2021 and 2023.

After the game, Ohtani shared what he views as the "most difficult" part of a first postseason game while speaking about his fellow teammate's troubles.

Asked about Yoshinobu Yamamoto's struggles on the mound, Ohtani explained, "It's really hard to play loose in the first game of a playoff series. I'm sure Yoshinobu wasn't satisfied with his outing today."

In addition to it being the first game of the series, the Dodgers were coming off of five days' rest since they clinched a first-round bye in the National League.

While it's the first MLB playoff game for Ohtani, he did play deep in the postseason during his time in the Nippon Professional Baseball league.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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