Brandon Marsh found a ‘kindred spirit’ in Shohei Ohtani, and began a run playing with MVPs

There has been one constant throughout Brandon Marsh’s four-year career. His hair hasn’t always been wet. His beard hasn’t always been long. But he has always played with an MVP.

The Phillies outfielder made his debut with the Los Angeles Angels in 2021. He was 23 years old and eager to learn. He quickly found a teacher in Shohei Ohtani, who was on his way to winning his first MVP award.

Ohtani didn’t speak much English, and Marsh didn’t speak much Japanese, but they quickly became friends. They would communicate through a translator. Eventually, Marsh picked up some Japanese — which he has used in a few interviews over the years.

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Cameras would capture Ohtani and Marsh goofing around on the field. One day, they would be playing rock paper scissors. The next, Marsh would be making heart signs at his teammate from the outfield. The Japanese media quickly caught on, and before long, reporters were interviewing Marsh as a way to shed light on his MVP teammate.

He became so popular that they even interviewed Marsh’s mother, Sonja. She called Ohtani and her son “kindred spirits.”

“Shohei was definitely a dude that I looked up to, not just for his ability, but for the guy he was to me, the bigger brother he was to me,” Marsh, 26, said of Ohtani, who turned 30 last week. “Taking me in and trying to help me be the best person I can for the team. He’s a special, special player. A generational-type player.”

Marsh and Ohtani will be reunited on Tuesday when the Dodgers and the Phillies begin a three-game series between first-place teams at Citizens Bank Park. Marsh is excited. He said he has learned a lot from his former teammate.

“[In 2021], he came up to me and told me to just swing harder,” said Marsh, who was a rookie at the time. “He basically said my backside wasn’t driving as hard as it should have been. He said [to] attack the ball harder and let the body work.

“It helped me get to heaters at the top of the zone. Even if it’s just fouling them off to get to another pitch, instead of swinging through it. It just made me a little more aggressive to the ball, and I think it gave me a little bit more confidence. Just because I was going about it so aggressively.”

When Marsh was dealt to the Phillies at the 2022 trade deadline, he found another MVP-caliber mentor in Bryce Harper, who won the award in 2015 with the Nationals and 2021 with the Phillies. He also overlapped with three-time MVP Mike Trout with the Angels.

And now, Marsh is connected to the two front-runners for this year’s NL MVP Award in Harper and Ohtani. He concedes that he is blessed.

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“It feels like a dream,” Marsh said. “I can look at the lineup card and see seven dudes that I’ve watched as long as I’ve loved baseball. And I get to play with those guys every single night. And when I was with the Angels, they had a lot of star talent over there, too, and I was able to learn from them and follow in their footsteps. It’s a blessing, the path that I’ve been put on.”

Marsh said he and Ohtani loosely stay in touch. Marsh will shoot him a text whenever Ohtani does something remarkable, like break Babe Ruth’s 88-year-old record for the most pitching strikeouts by a player with at least 100 career home runs. He knows that Ohtani is a “big, big deal,” so he doesn’t expect to spend too much time with him when the Dodgers are in Philadelphia.

But he does hope that they can catch up.

“Hopefully he gives me a couple of extra hitting tips when he comes into town,” Marsh said. “Shohei is one of the best to ever play the game. To be on the same field as him, along with Bryce and eight other dudes on this team, and Trouty, is a blessing and I’ll remember that forever.”

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