To reach the required number of plate appearances, you have to be in the lineup. And to be in the lineup, you need the skills to be used — and you have to be a player your team trusts.

After completing his rookie season with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Shohei Ohtani was asked about his goals for Year Two.

As a pitcher, he said he wanted to take the ball every six days — about 26 or 27 starts — and added confidently:

“I’m going to try to win all of them.”

The previous year, no pitcher on the team had reached double-digit wins. Ohtani set his goal clearly: win 10 or more games.

He did.
In 22 starts, he went 11–4.

As a hitter, he set another target: reach the minimum plate appearances required for official batting rankings and hit .300.

But he understood something critical.

“Reaching the required plate appearances means I have to be in the lineup. To be in the lineup, I need the skills that make me usable — and I need to be someone the team trusts. In that sense, numbers matter.”

Playing time is not given.

It is earned.

To be trusted in key moments, you must demonstrate consistency. To stay in the lineup, you must produce. To produce, you must refine your skills.

For Ohtani, statistics were not vanity.

They were evidence of reliability.

That season, he appeared in 87 games as a hitter, batting .274 with 10 home runs — achieving the first double-digit wins and double-digit home runs season since Babe Ruth.

Behind those numbers was a simple logic:

Earn trust.
Stay in the game.
Let results follow.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Shohei Ohtani: Baseball Chronicle I (Japan Edition 2013–2018), p.94

Shohei Ohtani Quotes

To reach the required number of plate appearances, you have to be in the lineup. And to be in the lineup, you need the skills to be used — and you have to be a player your team trusts.

Source

More Quotes

Even when I gave up hits, my teammates covered for me. I was given the ace number and sent to the mound because they trusted me. That’s why I wanted so badly to hold them down.

I could feel myself getting better and better as a hitter. There was a version of me that was higher than I expected, and that’s when batting started to become fun.

There are players whose scale I admire and want to reach, but I’ve never thought that I want to become exactly like someone else.

I realized that I was the one who needed to practice the most on the team, so I shouldn’t create a situation where the coach is forced to step in like that.

I’ve never thought that baseball practice was something I hated. I can push myself there—though even calling it ‘pushing myself’ feels strange. It feels more like I’m not pushing at all, and that’s actually when I’m strongest.

If someone can play games every day and still hit in games, then that’s fine. I can’t hit unless I put in the work—so I practice.

Whether the baseball gods really exist or not is beside the point. Personally, I hope they do. That’s just my own wish.

I want genuine people to achieve genuine results. That’s how I feel in any field.

Being aware that you are always being watched, and doing what must be done as a professional baseball player. That is what earns you the right to make plays that only you can make.