Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki will be going full circle next spring, and he’s looking forward to it.
Suzuki and left-hander Shota Imanaga will be heading back home to Japan when the Cubs open the 2025 MLB season with a two-game series March 18-19 against the Dodgers at the Tokyo Dome.
‘‘When I was a child, I had the opportunity to go watch the MLB game in Japan, and I never thought I’d be the one to be able to open the season in Japan as a major-leaguer,’’ Suzuki said through an interpreter before the Cubs’ 5-2 loss Friday to the Diamondbacks. ‘‘It’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime memory.’’
The game Suzuki saw was between the Yankees and the Devil Rays (now the Rays) in 2004, when Japanese star Hideki Matsui was starting his second season in New York.
Imanaga, fresh off pitching in the All-Star Game, remembers watching the Mariners and the Athletics playing in Japan in 2019, when 45-year-old Ichiro Suzuki wrapped up his stellar MLB career before his home fans.
Showing out well in their home country will be a top priority for Suzuki and Imanaga.
‘‘In Japan, that’s where I grew as a player and the fans kept rooting for me,’’ Imanaga said through an interpreter. ‘‘So I want to show them how I grew over here. . . . I want to prepare so that I’m not an embarrassment or anything for them.’’
There will be even more local star power on the other side of the matchup, with the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, who might be back to two-way duty by then, and right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Facing other Japanese stars on their shared home turf doesn’t necessarily raise the stakes, Imanaga said.
‘‘With the Japanese players facing each other, there’s going to be tension, regardless if it’s here or there,’’ he said.
But the overall experience will be one Suzuki is looking forward to.
‘‘It’s very special,’’ he said. ‘‘And I feel very happy for the fans. It’s going to be the first time in a while that I play in Japan, so I’m looking forward to that, and I want to be prepared the best I can.’’
Fans might want to prepare for a different experience, as well. It will be the first time MLB has returned to Japan since that 2019 series Imanaga recalled and the 25th anniversary of the first major-league games in the country between the Cubs and Mets.
‘‘The biggest difference is the atmosphere, obviously,’’ Suzuki said. ‘‘The cheering styles, different [musical] instruments. So while the baseball is the same, it’s just a different feeling.’’
Suzuki, meanwhile, is dealing with something else different at the moment. Toy Matsushita, his interpreter since he joined the Cubs, was let go during the All-Star break. Now Suzuki will be working with Edwin Stanberry, who is Imanaga’s interpreter, and Cubs staffer Nao Masamoto, who works with the team’s Pacific Rim operations and the major-league club’s video operation.
Suzuki didn’t address the change while talking with the media before the game, but manager Craig Counsell did.
‘‘Essentially, we made a decision moving forward that we can be in a good spot without Toy,’’ Counsell said. ‘‘We’ve built a pretty good support system around Seiya with some other people that can move the situation forward, and nothing will really change.’’
