Ohtani won't pitch in World Baseball Classic, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani won't pitch for Japan in the World Baseball Classic in March, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Saturday.

Roberts said it was Ohtani's decision to focus solely on being the designated hitter for his native country.

He said the team “absolutely” would have supported Ohtani if he had wanted to also pitch. Ohtani's teammate and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pitch for Japan in the WBC despite his heavy workload with the Dodgers last season.

“Yoshi feels he wants to take it on and feels good, and we support him,” Roberts said at the team's fan fest.

Ohtani made two starts for Japan in the 2023 WBC and then came out of the bullpen in the ninth inning to clinch the championship by striking out then-Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout for the final out against the United States.

Ohtani tore his ulnar collateral ligament in August that year and later underwent elbow surgery, which kept him from pitching during his first season with the Dodgers in 2024, when he was their full-time designated hitter.

He gradually returned to pitching last year and made four postseason starts during the Dodgers' run to their second straight World Series championship.

Ohtani didn't confirm his decision not to pitch in the WBC when speaking with reporters before Roberts. The four-time MVP said through a translator that he had to “see how my body feels, feel the progression and see what happens.”

The 31-year-old Ohtani said he's had a normal offseason because he hasn't been rehabbing from injury.

“I’m very healthy," he said. "Glad that I am.”

Roberts said he won't manage Ohtani any differently now that he's going to pitch a full season. He said there will be ample rest days in between starts and Ohtani won't be scheduled for any more two or three-inning starts.

Ohtani, Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki were teammates on Japan's WBC title team in 2023. But Sasaki won't be pitching this time, coming off a rookie season filled with ups and downs that ended with him pitching out of the bullpen for the Dodgers.

The WBC runs from March 5-17.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said he won't play for Canada in the WBC because of what he described as a personal reason.

“They’re very supportive,” he said. “I told them why I wasn’t going to be able to go out there and play in Puerto Rico and be that far from my family. I need to be close to California.”

Roberts is pondering his starting lineup ahead of the team reporting for spring training in Arizona on Feb. 13.

“I do feel great about having Shohei lead off. I do feel great about having Will (Smith) in the 5 (spot) and then after that, I’m going to kind of read and react,” he said. “You certainly see Mookie (Betts) in the 3 (spot).”

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Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman waves to fans as he arrives for a stage show during DodgerFest in Los Angeles, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts waits to talk to reporters during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts chats with reporters during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, left, talks to reporters during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani arrives to talk to reporters during DodgerFest at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

NEW YORK (AP) — A crowd is waiting to see you run a labyrinthine obstacle course you have never done before. You have to complete it with enough focus to avoid wrong turns, enough precision to ensure your foot touches certain spots and enough speed to beat dozens of rivals.

Also: You are a dog.

Specifically, you are one of the canine aces in Saturday's Westminster Kennel Club agility competition, which kicked off the storied club's milestone 150th dog show.

So how do you do it?

“We’re really codependent to each other,” veteran handler Amber McCune said after handling her border collie Prove-It to a win.

A singleton puppy whom she bottle-fed, Prove-It has always “run with the heart of a lion, just unabashed ambition, but it’s our bond, I think, that really does it,” because he wants to come through for her, said McCune, of Bedford, New Hampshire. “I’m just so grateful that I can be his person.”

Or, as last year's Westminster-winning handler, Emily Klarman, put it in a recent interview, “Agility is a big conversation that we’re having with our dogs.”

The conversation is partly verbal, with handlers yelling such commands as “tunnel!” and “jump!” and dogs sometimes answering with barks of enthusiasm. But communication also happens as handlers place their bodies purposefully, aware that dogs can draw cues from gestures as subtle as the turn of shoulders, and they interpret the animals’ own body language to keep them on target.

“If they're looking at something, that's probably what they're thinking about,” Klarman said before a recent practice session with Swish, a border collie, at the UDog training center in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania.

Like a furry rocket, the lean, mottled, 5-year-old navigated jumps, close-set poles, tight turns, narrow ramps, a seesaw and other equipment as though it was in her DNA. To some extent, it is: border collies are renowned for their intelligence, intensity and nimbleness, and they have taken more than two-thirds of Westminster's agility titles. Klarman and her dog Vanish notched one of those winning runs; three others were piloted by UDog's founders, Jessica Ajoux and Perry DeWitt.

But regardless of breed, becoming an agility champion takes a lot of training, technique and strategy.

Scores are based on both time and accuracy, with penalty points if, for example, canines bound off seesaws and ramps without setting foot in the end section. To instill that habit, a handler might get the dog accustomed to walking onto a pad on the ground, then put that pad on the end of the obstacle and eventually remove the pad.

Dogs also must master different approaches to jumps, depending on whether they need to turn tightly after landing.

Agility trials don’t allow for leashes, treats or toys on the course, so dogs need to be motivated by the fun of the game and their relationship with their handlers. And, perhaps, the prospect of a reward afterward. Georgie, a golden retriever, gets a toy stuffed with steak, meatballs or hot dogs, handler Cindy McGovern said while awaiting a run Saturday.

Handlers need to memorize complex pathways through about 20 obstacles. At Westminster, they don't get maps until the morning of the competition, then have a few minutes to walk the course and ponder, for instance, whether to cross ahead of or behind the dog on various turns.

“It's all about giving them the information they need,” handler Lee Ann Donner said between runs with her whippet, Gus.

Besides the mental and physical work, there's an emotional component. The animals “can definitely tell whether we're really excited and pumped up, or we're disappointed,” explains Klarman, who was careful not to let her feelings show when Vanish didn’t excel on a seesaw obstacle in the Westminster finals last year.

Westminster, considered the United States’ most illustrious dog show, added an agility competition in 2014. The popular sport introduced a faster-paced, more athletic and more all-embracing flavor to the traditional, buttoned-up parading of purebred dogs around rings. Agility is open to mixed-breed dogs, and a border collie-papillon mix named Nimble won in 2024. She turned in one of the top five performances Saturday.

Another mix, called Iron Man, won a special award for top mixed-breed dog with handler Merritt Speagle, who stepped in when owner Carol Boggess was unable to run.

A dog fan since she was a toddler, Klarman got into canine sports as a preteen, then got a nursing degree before realizing that she wanted to work with dogs as a career. Last year's Westminster win was a capstone.

“It really meant so much to showcase her and let the world know how special she is,” recalls Klarman, 33.

This year, she was cheering for her boyfriend, Peter Wirth, and his Pembroke Welsh corgi, named Welly.

Like a number of agility handlers, Wirth, 34, took up the sport simply because he had a very energetic dog that needed more stimulating activity than walks and fetch. Five years later, he and Welly returned to New York's Javits Center on Saturday for the Westminster contest and made the finals.

Klarman and Vanish stayed home, for a good reason. The dog's first litter of puppies is due next week.

FILE - Amy Gilmer, left, and her Chinese crested, Surfer Dude, wait backstage at Arthur Ashe stadium before competing in the agility preliminaries during the 147th Westminster Kennel Club Dog show, Saturday, May 6, 2023, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

FILE - A handler and his dog compete in the agility preliminaries inside Arthur Ashe stadium during the 147th Westminster Kennel Club Dog show, Saturday, May 6, 2023, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

FILE - Verb, a border collie, competes during the finals of the agility competition at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in Tarrytown, N.Y., Friday, June 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Emily Klarman, a Westminster Masters Agility Championship-winning dog handler, plays with Swish, a border collie, after a practice run at UDog Agility in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Jennifer Peltz)