Shohei Ohtani Wore Different Jersey Number With Team Japan in World Baseball Classic

Shohei Ohtani and Team Japan came up short in their World Baseball Classic title defense as they were eliminated by Venezuela in the quarterfinals.

Pitching and lack of sufficient offense let down the Samurai Japan team, though Ohtani had another productive WBC showing while appearing in four games. He did so by again wearing a jersey number that differed from the No. 17 that Ohtani has worn throughout the entirey of his MLB career.

Shohei Ohtani's jersey number in World Baseball Classic

Like was the case during the 2023 WBC, Ohtani wore No. 16 for Team Japan. It kept with the tradition of doing so whenever representing the country.

"I'm not overly concerned about what number I'm putting on," Ohtani said during a press conference when asked about his jersey number choice leading up to the World Baseball Classic in 2023. "But I've always had a number of 16 when playing for Team Japan."

Ohtani went on to bat .435/.606/.739 with four doubles, one home run and eight RBI over four WBC games that year. He additionally made three pitching appearances, one of which was out of the bullpen.

That memorably came in the WBC final against Team USA, and Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to clinch the gold medal for Japan. He was subsequently named MVP of the World Baseball Classic.

In this year's tournament, he was limited to just filling a designated hitter role. Ohtani batted .462/.611/1.231 with one double, three home runs and seven RBI. Included in that was combining with Ronald Acuña Jr. to make World Baseball Classic history as former MVP winners to hit a leadoff home run in the same game.

Although a decision was made to not have Ohtani pitch in the WBC this year, he continued with a throwing progression to prepare for the regular season. That saw the right-hander throw four innings in a simulated game late last week, as he reached 59 pitches.

Now Ohtani is going to be back to wearing a No. 17 jersey for the Dodgers. He'll return to Camelback Ranch this week and potentially get into a Spring Training game on the mound. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman previously suggested it was possible the Dodgers would have Ohtani start in the exhibition Freeway Series.

Some of that was expected to be contingent on when Ohtani returned from participating in the WBC. Had Japan reached the championship game, Ohtani would not have been back in camp until later in the week.