LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers have treated Shohei Ohtani’s return to the mound as a long-term play for months, preaching caution at every turn as baseball’s lone two-way star returned from a second major elbow ligament reconstruction. That wait is over, as the three-time MVP voiced to the organization’s brass what it had envisioned for years before he even put on a Dodgers uniform: He’s ready to be a two-way player again.
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Ohtani, the pitcher, is back. The organization made the official announcement Sunday night, announcing that Ohtani would serve as the club’s opener Monday against the San Diego Padres and make his pitching debut for the franchise 20 months removed from his September 2023 procedure. He is expected to pitch just one inning as he continues his buildup in the majors — something rather unprecedented, but necessary as the Dodgers keep his valuable bat in the lineup.
“He’s ready to pitch in a major-league game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sunday. “He let us know that.”
Ohtani voiced that his pitches were good to go Saturday night.
“I felt like the intensity was there and my stuff was game-ready,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
The Dodgers have slow-played Ohtani’s rehabilitation for months, decreasing his workload in spring training as he recovered from a torn labrum in his left (non-throwing) shoulder. He didn’t face hitters for the first time until May 25, when he touched 97 mph against a pair of teammates and a Dodgers hitting coach at Citi Field. The 21 days since have seen Ohtani quickly progress through a buildup on the mound, going from 22 pitches to 29 pitches to 44 pitches in a three-inning session Tuesday at Petco Park.
In that outing, Ohtani appeared to clearly amplify his intensity, using a PitchCom device and a pitch clock as well as pitching out of both the windup and the stretch as he recorded six strikeouts against teens from the Dodgers’ spring complex in Arizona.
That day, Roberts suggested there was a chance Ohtani could be back sooner than the post-All-Star break timeline the Dodgers have messaged for months. Ohtani agreed with that assessment Saturday night – asked directly if a pre-All-Star timeline was feasible, he shrugged and said, “Something like that.”
By Sunday morning, Roberts was suggesting that Ohtani could be ready to go after just one more simulated game. At 7:30 p.m. PT Sunday after a 5-4 Dodgers win over the Giants in which Ohtani reached safely all four times as a designated hitter, the club made it official over social media.
“The conversations, the confidence that he has, it’s time to go,” Roberts said.
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The Dodgers have the luxury to do this because no other team has the roster flexibility that Ohtani gives them. With Ohtani listed as a two-way player, he gives the Dodgers 14 active pitchers as opposed to the limit of 13 — meaning the Dodgers can still operate with their typical pitching staff while simply having Ohtani’s buildup continue in big-league games.
While he’s expected to pitch one inning Monday, he will continue to build up at a rate of about an inning per outing until he’s ready for full-fledged starts. For a Dodgers team that has 14 pitchers on the injured list, it’s a much-needed boost.
They’ll also get his arm while keeping his bat in the lineup, with the “Ohtani rule” implemented in 2022 allowing him to remain in the lineup as a designated hitter even after his one inning on the mound is complete. The turnaround should be mere seconds between his final pitch in the top of the first inning Monday night and his stepping into the batter’s box to lead off the bottom half of the frame.
The Dodgers have waited 17 months since Ohtani signed a record-setting 10-year, $700 million deal to watch him pitch in a game for the first time. They’ve already enjoyed the fruits of his ridiculous talents, as Ohtani won his third MVP award and became the first hitter ever to slug 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season in his first season with the club. That year also ended with a World Series.
Ohtani is already in the midst of another special season offensively, pacing the National League with 25 home runs and a 1.034 OPS.
The opportunity of seeing a fully-fledged Ohtani is something different altogether.
“It’s very exciting,” Roberts said. “I think that for me, I’m still a baseball fan first. I really am. The anticipation here for the game is, man, it’s going to be bananas when it happens. There’s been a lot of anticipation. I think we’ve done it the right way as far as kind of our process. Communicating with Shohei and feeling good. So when it does happen, I think that it’s just, it’s great for the game. It’s good for our team. Our guys are excited about this potential. Most important, I’m excited for Shohei.”
(Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
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