Last week Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, surrendered to law enforcement when the Department of Justice found that he had stolen more than $16 million from Ohtani’s bank account.
In total, Mizuhara accumulated more than $100 million in gambling debt.
Because of this, Ohtani was investigated by MLB and the federal government to ensure he wasn’t involved in sports gambling.
Now that Mizuhara has surrendered, Ohtani is reportedly expected to be cleared of wrongdoing in the case. Ohtani has since come out and said he’s glad he can focus on baseball.
The Dodgers’ clubhouse has backed up Ohtani behind the scenes throughout the investigation. Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow revealed the team’s message to Ohtani and his thoughts on the situation.
“There was nothing super formal, but we were all like ‘dude we’ve got your back.’ I think being in the clubhouse everyone knew right away clearly he had nothing to do with it. The first thing he did was ‘take my phone, figure this out.’ We all knew early on that Ippei was doing some shady stuff. It didn’t seem that he wasn’t very stressed about it either. When you know that you’ve done nothing, it’s only a matter of time before they figure it all out. It seems that there has not been any mental sweat lost on his part. I’m glad all this stuff has now come out.”
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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also spoke on the Ohtani situation over the weekend, saying that the investigation has not affected the team. For Ohtani’s part, he continues to produce for the Dodgers. Through the season so far, he’s hit .338 with four home runs and 10 RBIs.
Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
