By Rory Carroll
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Saturday’s Game Two of the World Series drew 15.9 million average viewers in Japan, the most ever for a postseason Major League Baseball game in the country, the league said on Monday.
Japan’s obsession with national hero Shohei Ohtani combined with a start on the mound by his Japanese teammate and fellow Los Angeles Dodger Yoshinobu Yamamoto no doubt led to the surge in interest among fans across the Pacific.
Yamamoto was excellent in the Dodgers 4-2 win on Saturday, giving up one run in 6-1/3 innings, to help LA take a 2-0 series lead over the New York Yankees.
Ohtani was hitless in Game Two and injured his left shoulder while attempting to steal a base in the seventh inning but is in the lineup for Monday’s Game Three in New York.
An Oct. 11 postseason game between the Dodgers and the Padres that featured Ohtani and pitching starts by Yamamoto and San Diego’s Yu Darvish averaged 12.9 million viewers in Japan, which at the time made it the country’s most-watched MLB postseason game ever.
The first two games of the Fall Classic are averaging nearly 30 million viewers combined in the U.S. and Japan, the league said, meaning fewer people have been watching “America’s Pastime” in the U.S. than in Japan.
In the U.S., the 18-34 year-old viewership, a demographic coveted by advertisers, was up by 93%, the league said.
Social media views (345 million) and engagement (25 million) were the most in World Series history, according to the league.
The Yankees will hand the ball to Clarke Schmidt for the pivotal Game Three while the Dodgers will counter with Walker Buehler as the best-of-seven series shifts to the Bronx.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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