The question was simple.
The responses were strikingly similar.
How good have the Evaders got to know Shohei Ohtani this year?
Good enough for some of his new teammates to draw a similar conclusion about the superstar’s personality; noting an unexpected dichotomy underlying the 30-year-old’s success.
“[He can] be silly and playful and look like he’s really having fun playing the game,” said veteran utility man Chris Taylor. “But at the same time, be super focused and locked in.”
Read more: How the Dodgers’ Tommy Edman honed his craft thanks to his father’s “great baseball mind.”
“He’s pretty serious,” catcher Austin Barnes echoed. ‘But he can also joke and mess around. He makes me laugh.”
“He does a great job of taking a childlike joy in the game,” reliever Blake Treinen added, “but playing it like a grown man.”
“He almost looks like a little child, trapped in a gigantic body,” Kiké Hernández explained. “He doesn’t necessarily always show it. But I was surprised by how much personality he has.”
As much as Ohtani has exceeded expectations on the field this season, he will almost certainly win the third most valuable player award of his career with 54 home runs, 59 stolen bases, a .310 batting average and 130 RBIs in a first. -place Dodgers team that begins its postseason on Saturday — his acclimation behind the scenes has been equally remarkable to those around the team.
He’s not exactly joking. Or draw attention with flashy antics off the field. But in the first season of the 10-year, $700 million contract he signed last December, he developed a reputation as one of the more amiable characters among this year’s cast of players.
“He’s still a very private guy, but I think he just really wants to be seen as just one of the guys,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Every day, in every interaction, he is very present and involved.”
On the morning of the Dodgers’ regular-season finale last week, for example, Ohtani burst out laughing over the din of morning chatter in a sleepy pregame clubhouse.
In the corner of the room, he and Teoscar Hernández were working on their lockers. At one point, Ohtani threw his head back with a high-pitched cackle as he giggled with a wide smile on his face.
“He’s great,” Hernández said of Ohtani’s sense of humor. “And he’s not that quiet.”
A few minutes later, however, Ohtani’s attention shifted to pre-match preparation. Sitting next to first base coach Clayton McCullough, he stoically studied an iPad containing the scouting report for the day’s pitcher and formulated his daily plan of attack to try to steal a base.
“Everyone says he’s a bit of a private guy, but within the clubhouse and within our guys he was great,” pitcher Clayton Kershaw said. “You can clearly see how much he cares about winning.”
It was the epitome of what Dodgers players have come to love about Ohtani this season.
An airy presence at a certain moment. “He always has a great attitude and a sneaky personality that is quite funny,” Treinen said.
Then focus unilaterally on the next one.
“It’s a special talent to be able to do this,” Taylor said. “Being super focused and locked in and having the work ethic that he has.”
While Ohtani was long known for the latter during his MLB career, his open nature was not evident early in his Dodgers tenure, when he arrived with a notoriously private reputation.
Accompanied by his longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, there was initially a “buffer” between Ohtani and the rest of the club at the start of spring training, as Roberts later described it. Many of Ohtani’s early interactions with teammates were limited to on-field workouts, with the slugger seemingly standing at a distance in the clubhouse. Mizuhara was even known to text fellow players on Ohtani’s behalf, while Ohtani himself was rarely involved in a squad-wide group message.
“It was difficult,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ initial communication process with Ohtani, when Mizuhara was still there.
Read more: Shaikin: The next big battle in the NL West: Andrew Friedman vs. Buster Posey
But then the Dodgers went to South Korea for their season-opening series in late March. Mizuhara’s theft and gambling plot was discovered after their opening day match. And by the time the team returned home, a new dynamic was taking shape between Ohtani and the rest of the roster – who rallied around their new star addition without ever casting doubt on his innocence in the scandal.
“I don’t know if the situation helped him that he had no choice but to feel like he was part of the group, or [if it was] he appreciated how much we had his back, and how much we supported him during probably the worst times of his life, of his career,” Kiké Hernández said. “But what I’ve seen from him since — and maybe he would show that anyway — but I’m just surprised by his personality and everything. He is one of us. He’s one of the guys. And I’m happy to have him in the group.”
Teoscar Hernández, a fellow free agent who signed with the Dodgers in his first year, was one of the first to develop a bond with Ohtani, giving him rudimentary lessons in his native language, Spanish, while Ohtani taught him some basic Japanese.
“It was great,” said Hernández, who noted that while their language lessons have become more infrequent as the season has gone on, their friendship has only grown closer over time. “We try to be very close.”
An early-season rain delay at Wrigley Field offered another glimpse into the lighter side of Ohtani’s personality as he played with a cricket bat in the batting cages to the amusement of his teammates.
“This guy is lively, playful and jokes a lot,” strength and conditioning coach Travis Smith said. “Some guys are just always focused. That’s all they do. So [it’s unique] being able to see a guy light-hearted and play, and then once he steps on the field, it’s time.
Reliever Alex Vesia often takes a seat near Ohtani at the back of the team plane, and laughed as he talked about how the famously heavy sleeper will usually sprawl across an empty row, occasionally lifting part of his 6-foot-4 leaves body dangling in the air. aisle.
Read more: Reasons for confidence and concern for Dodgers in playoffs, from Shohei Ohtani to pitching
“He’s the most down-to-earth, normal person ever,” Vesia said.
Ohtani’s love of Japanese anime has become another point of fascination for his Dodgers teammates. Even on the night he eclipsed the 50-homer, 50-steal threshold with a historic six-hit game in Miami, “we’re going on the bus and talking about anime shows,” reliever Joe Kelly said.
“Because he’s not only good at baseball, but he’s a face known all over the world… I never see him stressed or anything,” Kelly said. “That might be the craziest thing about it.”
That doesn’t mean the celebrity circus that Ohtani is – begrudgingly – attracting has been without downsides for the Dodgers this season.
When Roberts jokingly suggested during spring training that the now-released Jason Heyward serve as Ohtani’s unofficial spokesman for the media horde tasked with covering him, dozens of reporters descended on the veteran outfielder the next day.
Heyward took it to heart, but also noted, “Shohei is the guy who talks about Shohei” — something that has happened less and less this year as Ohtani shut down pregame media sessions midway through the season.
There was also the Dodgers’ home opener in March, when several players visibly expressed frustration with a clogged clubhouse and wondered aloud how the presence of so many reporters would affect their new daily reality.
In the six months since, many players and coaches have done more Ohtani-related interviews than they can count, from local LA press to international writers to multi-camera sit-downs for TV specials broadcast in Japan.
However, the disruption this has caused has been more than offset by Ohtani’s on-field production and off-field temperament.
When fellow superstar Mookie Betts was asked during the Dodgers’ last homestand if it felt like Ohtani carried the team, he replied, “That’s pretty obvious… That’s why he got $700 million to carry us, and we gotta get him just support. .”
A few days earlier, in the team’s first home game after Ohtani eclipsed 50-50, Kershaw led an impromptu dugout ovation before Ohtani’s first at-bat.
Read more: Shohei Ohtani falls short of the Triple Crown, but extends his hitting streak in the Dodgers final
“He really, really wants it [win] and gets excited about the possibility of things after the season, which is great,” Kershaw said. “[We] Certainly, we feed the energy of our club.”
Those moments can all be traced back to Ohtani’s ability to ingratiate himself with his new teammates this year.
He has taken them to task in conversation, with those around the club repeatedly complimenting English that was better than they expected. Encouragement offered in the dugout. And with a relaxed attitude, belied by his laser focus on the pitch, he was present in the daily rhythms of the season, bridging the gap that once existed between him and his new team.
“I think we’ve gotten to know him enough to know what he stands for,” Kiké Hernández said. “I’m just glad we get to see who Shohei is, and we can all have a good time.”
Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
