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132-639: Shohei Ohtani ( Japanese : 大谷 翔平 , Hepburn : Ōtani Shōhei , pronounced [oːtaɲi ɕoːheː] ; born July 5, 1994) is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher and designated hitter (DH) for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed " Shotime ", he has previously played in MLB for the Los Angeles Angels and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for
264-456: A bipartite patella . He finished the season batting .286/.343/.505 with 18 home runs, 62 RBIs, and 12 stolen bases in 106 games. The 2020 MLB season did not start until July 24 due to the COVID-19 pandemic . On July 24, Ohtani was the first ever automatic player on second base in an official MLB game at the start of the 10th inning as part of one of the new 2020 MLB season rules in a game against
396-532: A full count , securing a 3–2 win and Japan's third title. Ohtani was born to Kayoko and Toru Ohtani in Mizusawa (now part of Ōshū ), Iwate , Japan, on July 5, 1994. His mother Kayoko was a national-level badminton player in high school and his father Tōru ( 徹 ) worked at a local automobile manufacturing plant and was an amateur baseball player who played in the Japanese Industrial League . Ohtani
528-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
660-408: A "punch-out" motion to signal a called strikeout . Note: When a fielder makes a putout, they must maintain secure possession of the ball. The general exception is when a fielder loses possession of the ball because they attempt to throw it immediately after making the out. In baseball statistics, each out must be credited to exactly one defensive player, namely the player who was the direct cause of
792-532: A 10–4 record and a 1.86 ERA on the mound with 174 strikeouts in 140 innings. He tied for 8th in the PL in wins and was third in strikeouts (behind Norimoto and Kodai Senga ). He led Nippon Ham to the 2016 Japan Series , but lost the opener to the Hiroshima Carp; he struck out 11 in 6 innings but allowed 3 runs, two on a homer by Brad Eldred and one on a steal of home by Seiya Suzuki . Down 2 games to 0, he came up big as
924-424: A 397-foot three-run homer against Josh Tomlin . On April 6, he hit his third home run in three days, becoming the first Angels rookie to do so. In only his second start on the mound on April 8, Ohtani took a perfect game through 6⅓ innings before allowing a hit. Overall, Ohtani pitched seven scoreless innings while striking out 12. On June 8, he was placed on the injured list for the first time in his MLB career due to
1056-652: A 4.35 earned run average (ERA) in 10 + 1 ⁄ 3 innings pitched. Ohtani expressed a desire to move directly to the major leagues after high school and received interest from numerous teams including the Texas Rangers , Boston Red Sox , New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers . On October 21, 2012, he announced that he would pursue a career in Major League Baseball rather than turn professional in Japan. The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters decided to draft him in
1188-503: A Grade 2 UCL sprain in his right elbow. He received platelet-rich plasma and stem-cell injections to treat the injury. Ohtani was activated from the injured list as a hitter on July 2 and on August 3, hit two home runs against the Cleveland Indians , marking his first career multiple-home run game and his first two home runs in a road game. After not pitching for 11 weeks, Angels manager Mike Scioscia announced that Ohtani would start
1320-519: A September 7 game against the Orix Buffaloes , he homered to straightaway center at Kyocera Dome to become the first Japanese player to reach double digits in both home runs and wins. He tossed a 1–0 shutout against Orix on September 13 and became the first pitcher out of high school to record a 1–0 shutout victory within his first two years for the Fighters since Toshiaki Moriyasu in 1967. He also became
1452-410: A batted ball, the fielder nearest to the action is usually credited with the putout. Although pitchers seldom get credited with putouts, they are credited with their role in getting outs through various pitching statistics such as innings pitched (a measure of the number of outs made by the pitcher, used in calculating their ERA ) and strikeouts . Certain terms are sometimes used to better describe
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#17328810438051584-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
1716-553: A career-low ERA of 1.86. He had a 10–4 record, struck out 174 batters in 140 innings with 4 complete games and one shutout. He also won the Best Nine award as a pitcher and won the Pacific League MVP. He got nearly double as many votes as any other pitcher for the PL for the 2016 NPB All-Star Game; he had 300,025 while #2 Shota Takeda had 158,008. He could not pitch in the event due to a blister on his finger but wound up starring as
1848-467: A changeup. Furthermore, in spring training, the Angels and Ohtani agreed to allow him to play without limitations or restrictions and drop the "Ohtani Rules", a plan the Angels mirrored from Ohtani's schedule in Japan and had implemented since his 2018 rookie season that restricted his usage to a schedule of pitching once a week and hitting only three to four times between starts. On February 8, Ohtani agreed to
1980-589: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
2112-555: A designated hitter (DH). In Game 1, he batted for DH Yuya Hasegawa and lined out in the 8th against Scott Mathieson . Starting at DH and hitting 5th in Game 2, he homered off Shoichi Ino in the 5th to start the PL comeback from a 3–0 deficit. He singled against Ryo Akiyoshi in the 7th and scored on a hit by Kenta Imamiya for a 4–3 lead. Coming up with a 5–4 deficit in the 8th, he singled off Shinji Tajima to bring in Shogo Akiyama with
2244-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
2376-583: A few forkballs in the mid-140s, including one he threw perfectly in the second inning to strike out Tampa Bay Rays star Ben Zobrist . In December, he became the second player out of high school in NPB history to reach 100M yen in salary in his third year, after Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2001. His new contract more than tripled his previous salary estimated at 30M yen. 2015 marked Ohtani's third professional season (and second full season). Though his offensive production declined somewhat (five home runs), his performance on
2508-520: A game as a pitcher, bat in the heart of the order (3rd through 5th), and get a hit and a run batted in (RBI) in that game. He missed time during the year with a right ankle sprain and right cheekbone fracture. For the season, he was 3–0 with a 4.23 ERA, 33 walks, and 46 strikeouts in 61 + 2 ⁄ 3 innings. and hit .238/.284/.376 in 204 plate appearances . He had seven outfield assists to one error. His 8 hit batsmen tied Manabu Mima , Tadashi Settsu , Hideaki Wakui and Ryoma Nogami for 5th in
2640-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
2772-513: A hit until Keun-woo Jeong singled in the seventh inning and had the most whiffs in a game for the first Premier 12 ever. Norimoto relieved with a 3–0 lead but he and two other relievers combined to allow four in the 9th to blow it as Japan fell in a shocking defeat. He tied for the event lead in ERA and led in strikeouts while allowing the lowest average by a starting pitcher. He was named the All-Star SP for
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#17328810438052904-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
3036-408: A no-decision. He finished the season 15–5 with a 2.24 ERA, 196 strikeouts, and only 100 hits in 160 + 2 ⁄ 3 innings. He led the PL in ERA (.14 over Nishi), tied Wakui for the most wins, and was second in strikeouts (19 behind Norimoto, though he threw 34 fewer innings). He rarely played the field but did see some action at DH, hitting .202/.252/.376 with five home runs in 109 at-bats. He made
3168-490: A pitcher and outfielder, utilizing his strong throwing arm as well as his impressive batting skills. As a hitter, he batted .274, with 28 extra-base hits (including 10 home runs), 31 RBIs, and a .842 on-base plus slugging percentage in 212 at-bats. As a pitcher, he was 11–4 with a 2.61 ERA in 24 starts and struck out 179 (third in NPB) in 155.1 innings. His 10.4 K/9 was the best in the league and opponents hit just .223 against him. In
3300-454: A pitcher. He was the second Nippon Pro Baseball rookie drafted out of high school the previous year to be used as both a pitcher and position player, following Kikuo Tokunaga in 1951; Ohtani was the first to start in both roles. He was the first NPB pitcher since Takao Kajimoto in 1963 to bat 3rd, 4th, or 5th and the first rookie hurler to do so since Junzo Sekine in 1950. He was the second player, following Osamu Takechi (also 1950), to start
3432-629: A season and was unanimously named the 2024 National League MVP. He won the 2024 World Series in his first MLB postseason appearance. Internationally, Ohtani represents Japan . At the 2023 World Baseball Classic , he won the MVP Award for the tournament following Japan's victory over the United States . The 2023 final was one of the most-watched baseball games in history, culminating with Ohtani striking out Angels teammate and USA captain Mike Trout on
3564-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
3696-500: A seventh-grader, Ohtani recorded all but one of 18 outs in a six- inning regional championship game. As a teenager, Ohtani could have played baseball for any powerhouse high school team in big cities such as Osaka or Yokohama . Instead, he opted to stay local, selecting Hanamaki Higashi High School in Iwate Prefecture , Northern Japan, the same high school as pitcher Yusei Kikuchi , whom he admired; Ohtani competed there as
3828-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
3960-507: A statistically unprecedented two-way season that saw him bestowed with the Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award . In 2022, he became the first player in the modern era to qualify for both the hitting and pitching leaderboards in one season, finishing third in the AL with 219 strikeouts. Ohtani won his second AL MVP in 2023, leading the AL with 44 home runs while recording 10 wins as a pitcher. He
4092-403: A strikeout, the catcher is credited with a putout, because the batter is not out until the pitched ball is caught by the catcher. (If the catcher drops the third strike and has to throw the batter-runner out at the first base, the first baseman receives the putout while the catcher receives an assist.) When an out is recorded without a fielder's direct involvement, such as where a runner is hit by
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4224-507: A swimmer and played baseball. Ohtani's high school baseball coach, Hiroshi Sasaki, said that he was a fast swimmer who could have competed in the Olympics. Under Sasaki's guidance, Hanamaki Higashi's players lived on campus, returning home for only six days a year. Sasaki would assign toilet cleaning chores to Ohtani, to teach him humility. In 2012, Ohtani threw a 160 km/h (99 mph) fastball as an 18-year-old high school pitcher, which at
4356-481: A two-year $ 8.5 million contract with the Angels, avoiding arbitration . On June 23, he hit for himself as a pitcher and the second batter in the lineup with designated hitter rules in place, making it the first time in MLB history that an American League team chose not to use a DH while a National League team used one. On July 7, he hit his 32nd home run of the year, a solo shot off of Boston Red Sox starter Eduardo Rodríguez , passing Hideki Matsui 's mark in 2004, for
4488-605: A wins above replacement (WAR) value of 9.1 and finished third in home runs (46), fourth in slugging percentage (.592), fifth in OPS (.965), first in triples (eight), fifth in drawing walks (96), eighth in stolen bases (26), second in extra-base hits (80), second in intentional walks (20), fifth in OPS+ (158), and first in power-speed number (33.2). Ohtani was unanimously voted the American League Most Valuable Player , becoming
4620-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
4752-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
4884-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
5016-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
5148-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
5280-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
5412-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
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5544-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
5676-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
5808-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
5940-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
6072-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
6204-524: Is the youngest of three children. He has one older sister, Yuka, and one older brother, Ryuta ( 龍太 ) , who is also an amateur baseball player in the Japanese Industrial League. In Japan, Ohtani was known as a " yakyū shōnen " ( 野球少年 ; "baseball boy")—a kid who lives, eats and breathes baseball. Coached by his father, he displayed an aptitude for the game at an early age. He began playing baseball in his second year of elementary school, and as
6336-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
6468-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
6600-550: The 2012 NPB Draft nevertheless, despite knowing that there was a high likelihood he would not play for them. After an exclusive negotiating window between him and the Fighters, Ohtani announced that he would sign with the Fighters and spend some years in Japan before a possible MLB move. Hokkaido said it would allow Ohtani to serve as a pitcher and position player; the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had become Ohtani's top-choice MLB team, were not prepared to let him play both ways. He
6732-409: The 2016 Japan Series and had cost him a chance to play in the 2017 World Baseball Classic in addition to restricting his playing time during the season. On November 21, 2017, MLB and NPB came to a posting agreement for Ohtani. Because he was under 25 years old, Ohtani was subjected to international signing rules. This capped his bonus at $ 3.557 million and limited him to a rookie salary scale, while
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#17328810438056864-486: The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters . Because of his elite contributions as a hitter and as a pitcher, a rarity as a two-way player , Ohtani's prime seasons have been considered among the greatest in baseball history, with some comparing them favorably to the early career of Babe Ruth . Considered early on as an elite two-way player, Ohtani was the first pick of the Fighters in the 2012 NPB draft. He played for
6996-579: The Houston Astros , followed by four more walks on September 24 and two walks on September 25 against the Seattle Mariners. His 11 walks drawn in the three-game span also tied the MLB record set by Harper in 2016. On September 26, Ohtani reached the 150-strikeout milestone against the Seattle Mariners and finished the year unbeaten at home, going 6–0 with a 1.95 ERA in 13 starts. Ohtani's home ERA
7128-678: The Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from
7260-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
7392-463: The Oakland Athletics . He was thrown out in a rundown. On July 26, Ohtani returned to the mound against the Oakland Athletics , making his first pitching appearance since September 2018. He allowed five runs and was removed from the mound without recording an out, starting his season with a loss and an infinite ERA . After his second start he began to experience discomfort in his right arm, and it
7524-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
7656-661: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
7788-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
7920-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,
8052-486: The umpire rules a batter or baserunner out. When a batter or runner is out, they lose their ability to score a run and must return to the dugout until their next turn at bat. When three outs are recorded in a half-inning , the batting team's turn expires. To signal an out, an umpire generally makes a fist with one hand, and then flexes that arm either upward, particularly on pop flies, or forward, particularly on routine plays at first base. Home plate umpires often use
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#17328810438058184-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
8316-498: The 1st inning. With the count 0–1, Ohtani threw a fastball that registered 162 km/h (101 mph) on the stadium radar gun and shattered Ginji's bat in half. He also hit 162 km/h twice against the second hitter, Aoi Enomoto . Of the 15 pitches he threw in the first inning, eight were in the 160s; 99s in MPH. During the postseason, Ohtani was chosen to become a member of the national team , dubbed Samurai Japan , and participated in
8448-477: The 2013 Pacific League. Ohtani received 4 of the 233 votes for the 2013 Nippon Professional Baseball Rookie of the Year Award (Pacific League), tying Tatsuya Sato for a distant second behind Takahiro Norimoto . During his five-year tenure with the Fighters, Ohtani opted to live in the team's provided dormitories, while his parents oversaw his finances. Throughout the entire season, Ohtani performed double-duty as
8580-500: The 23rd pitcher and first designated hitter to win the award. For the 2021 All-MLB Team , Ohtani is the only player to be named to both teams, first team and second team, in the same season (as a designated hitter and starting pitcher respectively). He became the first pitcher, the first Japanese player and the first Angels player to win the Edgar Martínez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award . Ohtani
8712-432: The 3rd AL player to accomplish this feat before September. He also became the first AL player to reach both of those totals in a season since Curtis Granderson in 2011. From September 22 to 25, Ohtani drew 13 walks in a 4-game span, tying an AL/NL record set by Babe Ruth in 1930, Bryce Harper in 2016, and Yasmani Grandal in 2021. He drew a career-high four walks on September 22 and three walks on September 23, against
8844-461: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of
8976-531: The American League. On July 26, in his 15th pitching start of the season against the Colorado Rockies , Ohtani became the first pitcher in league history to register 100 strikeouts while holding a major-league-leading 35 home runs before the end of July, as no pitcher had ever recorded triple-digit strikeouts and added more than nine home runs in the same season. Additionally, in the same game, Ohtani became
9108-543: The Best Nine as the PL's top hurler. He finished third in MVP voting again, placing behind Yanagita and Shogo Akiyama for the 2015 Pacific League MVP. Ohtani placed third in MVP voting (first among pitchers) and was one of three candidates considered for the 2015 Sawamura Award, given annually to the top pitcher in either league. Ohtani led the league in wins and winning percentage with a 15–5 record in just 22 starts, and his 2.24 ERA, five complete games, and three shutouts were also
9240-555: The DH in Game 3, getting three hits, a run, and an RBI. In the bottom of the 10th, he singled off Daichi Osera score Nishikawa with the winner; Nippon Ham would take the next three games to win their second Japan Series title. Teammate Brandon Laird would win the Series MVP. Ohtani hit .375/.412/.625 with four doubles, doing more on offense than on the mound for the Series. He made the Best Nine as
9372-448: The Fighters from 2013 through 2017 as a pitcher and an outfielder , and won the 2016 Japan Series with them. The Fighters posted Ohtani to MLB after the 2017 season, and he signed with the Angels, soon winning the 2018 American League (AL) Rookie of the Year Award . Following an injury-plagued 2019 and 2020, Ohtani hit 46 home runs and struck out 156 batters en route to winning his first AL Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) in 2021,
9504-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
9636-579: The Month Award, becoming the first back-to-back Player of the Month Award winner in either league since Chase Headley in August and September 2012, and the first in the AL since Josh Hamilton in 2012. For July, he produced nine home runs, 19 RBIs, 16 walks, and a .282/.396/.671 slash line in 23 games at the plate, and a 1.35 ERA with 17 strikeouts and one walk in 20 innings. On August 18, Ohtani hit his 40th of
9768-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
9900-521: The Opening Day starting pitcher and he pitched 4 + 2 ⁄ 3 innings against the Houston Astros , allowing one earned run and one walk while striking out nine. He became the first player in MLB history to start Opening Day as both the starting pitcher and the leadoff hitter. Ohtani recorded two home runs, including a grand slam , on May 9, against the Tampa Bay Rays , marking the second time of
10032-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
10164-627: The Suzuki All-Star Series, a five-game friendly competition with a squad of major leaguers. In Game 1, he pitched one shutout inning in relief, retiring three consecutive batters. He started Game 5 at the Sapporo Dome and, although his team ultimately lost (3–1), he wasn't charged with an earned run (he gave up two unearned), and of the 12 outs he recorded in four innings, he got seven via strikeout. He threw mostly fastballs, even clocked one at 160 km/h (99 mph), occasional curveballs, and
10296-452: The Year . From his MLB peers he was given Sporting News Player of the Year Award , Players Choice Player of the Year Award , and Players Choice American League Outstanding Player Award . He was also named as both the team's Los Angeles Angels Player of the Year of 2021 and the team's Nick Adenhart Pitcher of the Year Award , as voted by his teammates. Additionally, Ohtani's 2021 season
10428-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
10560-457: The best in the league. All these stats were career bests, as were his 196 strikeouts, 0.909 WHIP, and 11 strikeouts per nine innings. Ohtani was dominant for the Japanese national team in the 2015 Premier 12. He hit 100 mph while blowing away eventual champion South Korea (10 K, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R in 6 IP) before Norimoto was relieved. Facing South Korea again in the semifinals, he was even sharper (11 K, 0 BB, 1 HB, 1 H in 7 IP). He did not give up
10692-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
10824-625: The end of Ohtani's impressive 2018 MLB regular season, the American media admitted they wrote off Ohtani far too early. Before the start of the season, the Angels announced that they would use him as both a hitter and a pitcher. Ohtani started as the designated hitter on Opening Day , March 29, against the Oakland Athletics , singling in his first at-bat off of Kendall Graveman . On April 1, he made his pitching debut, striking out six batters in six innings while allowing three runs, to pick up his first MLB win. On April 3, Ohtani hit his first MLB home run,
10956-470: The event ( Sho Nakata was the only other member of Samurai Japan to be picked for the All-Star team). In 104 games and 382 plate appearances in 2016, Ohtani hit 22 home runs. He also hit 18 doubles, 67 RBI, batted .322 with an OBP of .416, scored 65 runs, and had seven stolen bases. He won the Best Nine award as the designated hitter. Ohtani was the same dominant pitcher on the mound. In 21 games pitched, he had
11088-568: The first pitcher out of high school to notch two shutout victories within his first two years in the NPB since Yu Darvish. During the July 2014 Mazda All-Star Game, he threw a 162 km/h (101 mph) fastball in the bottom of the first inning, setting a new record for the fastest official pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher, beating the record set by the Yakult Swallows' Yoshinori Sato in 2010 (161 km/h (100 mph)). The jersey he wore during
11220-573: The first pitcher to throw a scoreless top half and record a hit, a RBI, a stolen base and a scored run while playing in an AL ballpark since Luis Tiant did so for the Minnesota Twins on April 26, 1970. Ohtani would finish the month of July as the first player in Major League history to ever have at least 37 home runs and 15 stolen bases before the end of July. And for the second straight month, Ohtani also earned his second American League Player of
11352-406: The first time in his career. He also tied for the MLB lead with eight triples to go along with 26 stolen bases. Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to have at least 45 homers, 25 stolen bases, 100 RBIs, 100 runs, and eight triples in a season and the second player in AL history to record at least 45 homers and 25 stolen bases in a season, joining Jose Canseco in 1998. He led the league with
11484-579: The game against the Houston Astros on September 2. However, hampered by a tight back and sore finger he only lasted 2 + 1 ⁄ 3 innings in the game. Ohtani ended his first major league season with a batting average of .285, a .361 on-base-percentage, 22 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 10 stolen bases. In 10 starts on the mound, he notched a 4–2 record with a 3.31 ERA, 1.16 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP), and 63 strikeouts. His .564 slugging percentage ranked seventh overall among MLB players with at least 350 plate appearances for this season. He became
11616-496: The game sold for 1,752,000 yen ($ 17,000 ), making it the top-seller at the All-Star 2014 Charity Auction. The proceeds were donated to three Tohoku earthquake children's relief funds. On October 5 against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles , Ohtani recorded the fastest pitch by a Japanese pitcher in an official game, tying Marc Kroon 's allord for NPB pitchers. The pitch came against lead-off hitter Akaminai Ginji in
11748-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
11880-820: The injury. Ohtani's debut MLB spring training in 2018 was disastrous and the majority of American news sources were extremely disappointed, concluding that he could not accomplish even one of his two-way abilities. Over two spring games against major leaguer batters, in just 2.2 innings pitching he gave up three home runs and had a 27.0 earned run average (average ERA for MLB pitchers was 4.14 that year). He completed his five game spring training, three of which against minor leaguers, with an 11.7 ERA in pitching, and 4 hits for 32 at bats , .125/.222/.125 in batting ( batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage , averaged .248/.318/.409 for MLB batters that year). Several major newspapers suggested he needed plenty of Triple-A minor league appearances before starting for Angels. By
12012-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
12144-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
12276-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
12408-554: The most home runs hit during a season by a Japanese-born player in MLB. Ohtani became the first player to be selected as an All-Star as both a position player and a pitcher. Ohtani participated in the 2021 Home Run Derby on July 12. He lost to Juan Soto in the first round, but set a record for the most home runs in the Derby of at least 500 feet with six. In the All-Star Game , he was the starting pitcher and leadoff designated hitter for
12540-424: The mound was among the best in the league, earning him the starter role in the 2015 All-Star Game and the pitching spot in the end-of-year Pacific League Best Nine awards. Ohtani started the 2015 NPB All-Star Game 1 for the PL. He went two innings and struck out two, allowing one run (on a double by Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and a single by Jose Lopez ), relieved by Nishi with a 1–0 deficit. The PL would lose 8–6 but he got
12672-450: The only players with at least 100 home runs and at least 250 strikeouts as a pitcher. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within
12804-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
12936-567: The other one) and one second-place vote. He had 1,268 vote points, to 298 for runner-up Laird. In 2017, he played in 65 games, hitting .332 with eight homers and 31 RBIs while posting a 3–2 record, a 3.20 ERA, and 29 strikeouts as a pitcher. In September, it was revealed that Ohtani would ask to be posted at the end of the season to play in Major League Baseball in 2018. However, before that could happen, he had surgery on his right ankle in early October. The injury had originally occurred in
13068-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
13200-408: The out. When referring to outs credited to a defensive player, the term putout is used. Example: a batter hits a fair ball that is fielded by the shortstop. The shortstop then throws the ball to the first baseman. The first baseman then steps on first base before the batter reaches it. For this play, only the first baseman is credited with a putout, while the shortstop is credited with an assist . For
13332-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
13464-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
13596-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
13728-477: The season and the eighth time in his career for Ohtani to record a multi-homer game, surpassing Ichiro Suzuki for the most by a Japanese-born player in MLB history, The grand slam was the first of his professional career, including both NPB and MLB. On May 14, he hit his 100th career MLB home run, making him the third Japanese-born player with at least 100 homers in the majors, trailing only Hideki Matsui with 175 and Suzuki with 117. Ohtani also joined Babe Ruth as
13860-650: The second-fastest Angels rookie to reach 20 home runs, and he joined Babe Ruth as the only MLB players with 10 pitching appearances and 20 homers in a season. He also won the American League Rookie of the Month award twice; in April and in September. On September 3, it was revealed that Ohtani would undergo Tommy John surgery , after an MRI showed new damage to his UCL. He underwent the surgery on October 1. On November 12, he
13992-418: The signing team also had to pay a $ 20 million posting fee to the Fighters. Ohtani narrowed his finalists to seven teams, signing with the Angels for a $ 2.315 million bonus. On December 9, 2017, Ohtani signed his deal with the Los Angeles Angels . On December 13, it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with a first-degree UCL sprain in his right elbow and received a platelet-rich plasma injection to treat
14124-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
14256-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
14388-421: The time, had set a Japanese high school baseball record until it was surpassed by Rōki Sasaki 's 163 km/h (101 mph) fastball in 2018. Ohtani threw the pitch in the Japanese national high school baseball championship tournament, commonly called Summer Koshien . In the 2012 18U Baseball World Championship , Ohtani had an 0–1 win–loss record with 16 strikeouts , eight walks , five hits, five runs, and
14520-477: The top pitcher and top DH in the PL. He became the first player to receive the awards as both a pitcher and a hitter. He topped four-time Cuban MVP Alfredo Despaigne easily at DH (190 votes to 47; three others combined for eight votes) but the vote at pitcher was closer (he had 111 of 245 votes, Ishikawa 69 and Tsuyoshi Wada 61). He was the runaway winner of the 2016 Pacific League Most Valuable Player Award, getting 253 of 254 first-place votes ( Naoki Miyanishi got
14652-575: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Out (baseball) In baseball , an out occurs when
14784-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
14916-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
15048-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
15180-413: The tying run. He thus produced three of the PL's five runs in the 5–5 tie, earning him game MVP honors. He hit 165 km/h (102.5 mph) on the radar gun during the year, setting a new NPB record. The record was broken by Thyago Vieira five years later, but he still holds the record for a Japanese player. He finished the year at .322/.416/.588 with 22 home runs in 382 plate appearances on offense and
15312-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
15444-549: The way he wanted to. Ohtani said, "[Until 2019], I could more or less do the things I wanted to do. I'd pretty much never experienced the feeling of wanting to do something but being completely unable to do it." After the results of the 2019 and 2020 seasons, Ohtani spent the offseason overhauling himself. He adjusted his diet, threw bullpen sessions earlier than usual and took batting practice against live pitching, an offseason first for him. He also embraced data and technology to optimize his training and recovery and also tinkered with
15576-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
15708-572: The year, Ohtani finished his pitching campaign by making 23 starts on the mound, going 9–2 with a 3.18 ERA, 156 strikeouts, 1.09 WHIP, and 44 walks in 130 1/3 innings. On the hitting side, Ohtani finished with an American League-leading 20 intentional walks, which was the most by an AL player since Trout in 2018. Ohtani, who batted .257/.372/.592, including 46 home runs — runner-up for the MLB lead in homers , 100 RBI, 103 runs, and 26 steals in 155 games and 639 plate appearances, hit several milestones to close his season, reaching both 100 RBIs and 100 runs for
15840-528: The year, becoming the first left-handed batter in Angels history to reach 40 home runs, surpassing lefty Reggie Jackson 's 1982 record of 39. He capped off the month of August by stealing his 20th base in a game on August 28 against the San Diego Padres , becoming the first Japanese-born player and the first player in Angels history to hit 40 home runs and have 20 stolen bases in the same season. He joined Alex Rodriguez in 2007 and Ken Griffey Jr. in 1999 as
15972-517: Was also awarded the Silver Slugger Award for being the best offensive player at the designated hitter position in the American League, and was named to Time 100 's list of most influential people of 2021, which culminated to many end-of-the-season-accolades. He was named Associated Press AP Athlete of the Year , Sporting News Athlete of the Year , Baseball Digest Player of the Year and Baseball America Major League Player of
16104-439: Was assigned the jersey number 11, previously worn by Yu Darvish . Ohtani made his debut at age 18 in the Fighters' season-opening game on March 29, 2013, playing as a right fielder . He was selected for a Pacific League roster spot for the 2013 All-star game . As a pitcher, he finished the season with a 3–0 record in 11 starts. As a rookie Ohtani was used in both the outfield (leading the Fighters with 51 games in right) and as
16236-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
16368-564: Was eventually revealed that he had a flexor strain in his right elbow after undergoing an MRI. He was shut down from pitching for the rest of the season. On the offensive side, Ohtani finished the season batting .190/.291/.366 with seven home runs, 24 RBIs, and seven stolen bases in 43 games. The culmination of experiencing injuries in his 2019 and 2020 campaigns led to Ohtani describing feeling "frustrated" and "useless". He went on to say that while his 2019 had been disappointing, his 2020 had been "more like pathetic" because he could not pitch or hit
16500-570: Was important to recognize the historic achievement that took place in 2021 with an award just about 2021." Ohtani was offered Japan's national honor, the People's Honour Award , by the Prime Minister of Japan in recognition of his accomplishments, but Ohtani rejected it, saying it was "still too early" for such an award. On December 22, The Sporting News released the article "The 50 greatest seasons in sports history, ranked". In it, Ohtani's 2021 season
16632-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
16764-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
16896-564: Was named the American League Rookie of the Year . On May 7, 2019, Ohtani played in his first game with the Angels since undergoing Tommy John surgery, batting as a designated hitter against the Detroit Tigers . In a June 13 game against the Tampa Bay Rays , he became the first Japanese-born player to hit for the cycle in MLB history. On September 12, his season prematurely ended after it was revealed that he needed surgery to repair
17028-408: Was ranked No.1, topping great seasons by athletes such as Babe Ruth , Michael Jordan , Tom Brady , Wayne Gretzky , and Lionel Messi . On March 22, 2022, Major League Baseball introduced a new rule that allows for a pitcher in the batting order to remain in the game as a designated hitter after they are pulled from the pitching mound, colloquially dubbed the " Ohtani rule ". The Angels named him as
17160-612: Was recognized for two Guinness World Records titles: (1) the first MLB player to achieve 100+ innings and record 100+ strikeouts as a pitcher, and 100+ RBIs, hits and runs as a batter in a single season and (2) the first player to start the MLB All-Star Game as a pitcher and a designated hitter. He also became the 16th recipient of the Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award , awarded by Commissioner Rob Manfred , who formally recognized Ohtani's 2021 season as "historically significant" and "unprecedented", calling it "so special that it
17292-511: Was the first player to win multiple unanimous MVPs and the first Japanese-born player to win a league home run title . After the 2023 season, Ohtani signed a 10-year, $ 700 million contract with the Dodgers, the largest contract in professional sports history . Unable to pitch in 2024 while recovering from a second elbow injury, Ohtani played as a DH for the Dodgers. He became the first player in MLB history to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in
17424-474: Was the lowest by an Angels starter since Jered Weaver in 2011. He also became the sixth starter in AL or NL history to make at least 13 home starts without a losing decision and an ERA below 2.00 in a season. In the last game of the season against the Seattle Mariners , he passed teammate Mike Trout 's 45 home runs in a single season to finish with the second-most home runs in a season in Angels history at 46, trailing only Troy Glaus ' 47 home runs in 2000. For
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