Shohei Ohtani has been sidelined with an injury, but he’s not absent from the dugout. And when Josue De Paula encountered him for the first time, his reaction was priceless.
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De Paula is turning heads in Los Angeles. After launching the first three-run homer of his career against the Miami Marlins, the 6-foot-3 prospect followed it up with another clutch performance against the San Francisco Giants. His go-ahead RBI double in the sixth inning helped power the Dodgers to an 8-2 win. But it was the celebration afterward that stole the spotlight.
The SportsNet LA broadcast followed De Paula walking down the Dodgers’ dugout after he scored a run. A barrage of high-fives followed, but one man forced the Dodgers’ newest star to take a pause and look back, awestruck:
Shohei Ohtani.
Paula didn’t expect injured Ohtani to be in the dugout. His honest reaction captured just how much the moment meant.
“I actually seen him earlier that day, but I wasn’t expecting him to be at the game. He caught me by surprise; I was giving everybody a handshake; I gave him a handshake, but then I double-take like he’s here,” DodgersNation quoted Paula. “I can’t wait until he’s back. To see what he does in the box, you don’t see that every day, so I can’t wait.”
Josue De Paula was promoted straight from Double-A to help fill a designated hitter void left by Shohei Ohtani’s injury.
He already recorded eight walks in 29 plate appearances, including that 416-foot go-ahead home run. However, perhaps the biggest moment was yet to come:
Meeting the two-way phenom.
Ohtani was sidelined with right biceps inflammation and left knee swelling and was not supposed to be in the dugout on Friday. Just as Paula was living the moment after his RBI double and high-fiving everyone in the dugout, he didn’t expect the Japanese two-way superstar to be in front of him.
Ohtani high-fived him in what became the once-in-a-lifetime moment for the rookie.
Paula had more reasons to cheer on Friday.
His RBI double drove in Kyle Tucker for the go-ahead run in the sixth, sparking a 5-run rally in the eighth.
“I just love his at-bats,” noted manager Dave Roberts. “It’s one of those things that we knew that coming up to the big leagues he wasn’t going to get overwhelmed. And it just helps when you control the strike zone, and he takes his walks. When the ball’s in the hitting zone, he can slug you. But he knows how to get a base hit, and it’s been very professional.”
LA’s No.1 prospect is 5-for-21 with a .238/.448/.476/.924 slash line in 29 plate appearances since his big league debut in Miami on Sept. 11. He reached base three times on Friday – a single, a double, a walk, and two runs scored. Among 75 pitches out of the zone, Paula has swung at 14. He made contact on seven.
Even if we consider the sample to be small, his 18.7% chase rate is elite, given the Major League average is 32.9% this season. And it’s not just his skipper praising the rookie.
The team’s player development staff are raving about De Paula’s plate discipline and swing decisions before he came up. He has proved them right every possible way.
The 21-year-old, performing in front of the largest crowd in his career, didn’t let the pressure get the best of him.
“I feel the adrenaline, but I just feel like I just know how to pinpoint it and focus it,” De Paula said of how he felt in the batter’s box. “So I’m so locked in, but I feel I know how to like calm myself down.”
Paula followed it up with another dominant show on Saturday that included 2 runs from his 3 at-bats. He, however, credited the Dodgers clubhouse for bringing out the best in him.
“Probably the biggest takeaway is it’s basically the same game, just around different people,” he said on SportsNet LA. “But one thing I didn’t expect was this team to be so cool. Like, all the players, the way they accepted me, the way they greeted me, making me feel comfortable. It put me in a better position to be myself.”
But despite his offensive show, De Paula’s defense still needs development, a challenge he’s embracing with confidence.
A better defense will make Josue De Paula a complete player
“I know that’s a big area, and improvement for me,” De Paula observed about his defense. “I know I got a lot of hate on it. So I’m that type: if I get hate on it, I’m gonna focus on it more. So I’m gonna shut a lot of people up with my defense very soon.”
It was certainly not expected of Josue De Paula to be at his best by now.
He is not a developed product and needs more time to grow.
He currently has a .948 fielding percentage in five minor league seasons, which the Dodgers certainly expect to get better with time.
For now, the Dodgers are leveraging Paula’s run-scoring ability.
“He’s swinging at strikes, taking balls, impacting the ball,” Mookie Betts noted. “There’s no matchup that is really a bad matchup, which is really neat to see someone so young that can handle it…. He’s been awesome.”
But he is the first Dodger position player to jump from Double-A to the Majors since at least 2014 (Erisbel Arruebarrena). With Double-A Tulsa, he was slashing .303/.401/.547 with 27 homers and 104 RBI in 124 games. Pauls even represented the Dodgers in the 2026 Sirius XM Futures Game.
That .300+ average in his last minor league season would be enough for the Dodgers to fill the gap till Ohtani returns.