When Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last offseason, it was expected that he would be ready to pitch again on Opening Day 2025. Then that got pushed to May. Now the team isn’t sure.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Thursday at spring training that Ohtani has not thrown off a mound since Feb. 25 and will not face hitters until the team returns from its season-opening Japan Series on March 18 and 19, per Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times.
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Ohtani is still playing catch, however, and got off to a strong start as a hitter with a home run in his first at-bat of spring training.
Roberts reportedly explained the pause as the Dodgers wanting to “slow-play” Ohtani’s pitching program as he ramps up as a hitter before the season. When asked if that would interfere with Ohtani’s belief that he could be pitching by May, Roberts indicated that the timetable was much more indefinite:
“[We’re] just trying to make it a broad time to return. We just don’t know. So I think that when he’s ready … we’ll know. But I don’t want to put any kind of expectation on you guys or Shohei.”
Ohtani has not pitched in any sort of game since undergoing surgery to repair a torn UCL at the end of the 2023 season, when he was still with the Los Angeles Angels. His pitching timetable was significantly altered when he tore the labrum in his left, non-throwing shoulder in Game 2 of the 2024 World Series. That injury required another surgery and interfered with his rehab over the offseason.
Figuring out Ohtani’s return was always going to be tricky because of his status as one of the most valuable players in baseball, even when he is a hitter only. Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes has said that rather than having him pitch in a rehab assignment, like any other pitcher, Ohtani will go straight from simulated games to an MLB mound because the team doesn’t want to lose his bat while he plays minor-league games.
There’s really no telling when Ohtani will be pitching again. The Dodgers are obviously going to be as cautious as possible, and they are also in the enviable position of not particularly needing him right now.
Even with Ohtani as a full-time DH, the Dodgers still project to have one of the best rotations in baseball with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and likely Tony Gonsolin or Dustin May. They also have some of the strongest pitching depth in baseball, which they have needed over the past few seasons due to an unparalleled cavalcade of injuries.
Ohtani pitching will still be good news for them, of course, as the team is planning to move to a six-man rotation once he comes back. He holds a career 3.01 ERA with a 1.082 WHIP and 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
In the meantime, Ohtani is coming off one of the most decorated seasons in MLB history, with a World Series ring and a third MVP award after posting the league’s first 50-homer, 50-stolen-base season. With his deferred money and untouched value as an advertising draw offsetting his former record $700 million contract, he is already doing plenty for the Dodgers.
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Shohei slows down pitching, won’t face hitters until after Tokyo Series
Sonja Chen
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GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Dodgers are slowing the pitching side of Shohei Ohtani’s rehab as he ramps up as a designated hitter for the regular season, manager Dave Roberts said Thursday. It is unclear how this development will affect Ohtani’s timeline to return to a big league mound.
Ohtani has not thrown a bullpen session since Feb. 25, though he has continued to play catch and keep his arm in shape. He is not expected to face hitters until after the Dodgers return from Japan, where they open the regular season against the Cubs from March 18-19.
“As the game has intensified, his work playing in games, it was sort of trying to give him a little respite from the rehab and to slow him down,” Roberts said. “We’ve never really put a time on anything. … We just felt that to intensify the bullpens alongside the intensity of the games wasn’t smart, so we just wanted to kind of slow-play it.”
Ohtani’s first Cactus League game was Feb. 28, and he’s expected to DH in back-to-back games for the first time Monday and Tuesday, the latter being the Dodgers’ Cactus League finale.
Ohtani has not taken to a big league mound since undergoing right elbow surgery in September 2023, and left shoulder surgery last November pushed back his offseason program as he worked to build up for a starting role this year.
Earlier in the spring, Roberts and the Dodgers had said that a return to pitching sometime in May would be feasible for Ohtani. That could still be the case, although Ohtani will have to ramp back up as a pitcher after returning from Japan. There is currently no plan for Ohtani to go on a rehab assignment, meaning that the bulk of his buildup as a pitcher would take place in simulated games.
There’s no proven guideline to follow for rehabbing a two-way player, other than when Ohtani came back from his Tommy John surgery in 2018. The Dodgers have said all along that Ohtani’s return to pitching would require frequent communication in order to progress the right way, and as such, Roberts said that this decision came to be after conversations between Ohtani and the team’s training staff.
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As for Ohtani’s expected return to the mound, Roberts did not provide a specific timeline.
“[We’re] just trying to make it a broad time to return. We just don’t know,” Roberts said. “I think that when he’s ready, when the process, the progression, as it’s going on, we’ll know. But I don’t want to put any kind of expectation on … Shohei.”
Sonja Chen covers the Dodgers for MLB.com.
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Ohtani last pitched in August 2023, while still a member of the Los Angeles Angels. The next month, he underwent a surgery that Dr. Neal ElAttrache described as a hybrid of the famed Tommy John surgery that included an internal brace to support the ulnar collateral ligament. He wound up winning MVP honors in his first season with the Dodgers without ever appearing on the mound, becoming the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season.
