LOS ANGELES — Major League Baseball announced Friday that it has opened an investigation following allegations involving Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, who has been at the center of a potential theft and sports betting scandal this week.
The MLB said in a statement that the organization has been “gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media.”
The MLB’s Department of Investigations began a “formal process investigating the matter” on Friday, it said. It did not provide more information about what it is investigating.
Representatives for Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday about the MLB investigation. An email to Mizuhara did not receive an immediate response.
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Mizuhara was fired from his post with the Dodgers after Berk Brettler LLP, attorneys for Ohtani, said the athlete was the victim of a “massive theft” in a case tied to sports gambling.
