Shohei Ohtani and his wife are expecting their first child, the Los Angeles Dodgers star has announced.
He announced the news on Instagram on Saturday, posting a photo of the baby scan next to his dog, Decoy.
“I can’t wait for the little rookie to join our family soon!” Ohtani captioned the post.
The Japanese star led the Dodgers to World Series glory in his first year with the team after leaving the Los Angeles Angels and signing a 10-year, $700 million contract.
Ohtani and his wife, Mamiko Tanaka, previously got married in 2024. It took Ohtani, who is extremely private, a few weeks to reveal exactly who she was after first announcing his marriage in February.
“I started a new chapter in my career with the Dodgers, but I also started a new life with someone from my native Japan who is very special to me,” he said on social media.
Tanaka is a 28-year-old former Japanese basketball player who played in the country’s top women’s league.
The couple was recently photographed together watching the Los Angeles Lakers play the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA in early December.
It marks an astonishing end to a dramatic year for Ohtani. Not long after signing with the Dodgers, he became embroiled in a scandal in which his interpreter stole millions from him to finance an ever-growing gambling addiction.
Ippei Mizuhara, who was also a close confidant of Ohtani, has entered a guilty plea and the FBI has said Ohtani was nothing more than a victim.
Mizuhara will be sentenced in January after pleading guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of filing a false tax return, crimes that carry a potential prison sentence of more than 30 years.