The first time Shohei Ohtani attempted to return from a Tommy John surgery, it did not initially go well.
In July 2020, more than 22 months removed from his first ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction as a rookie in 2018, Ohtani took the mound at Oakland Coliseum and failed to record an out, instead giving up five runs to the Athletics on three hits and three walks before being removed after 30 ineffective pitches.
A week later, in an Angels home game against the Houston Astros, the right-hander struggled again, needing 50 pitches to record five outs while giving up two more runs and issuing a staggering five walks.
Over the rest of that year’s 60-game season, Ohtani did not pitch again, getting shut down on the mound shortly after his second start when an MRI revealed a sprained flexor pronator mass in his right forearm. At no point during that pandemic-shortened campaign did Ohtani’s swing look right either, with the future three-time MVP posting MLB career-lows in batting average (.190), slugging percentage (.366) and OPS (.657).
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Five years later, with Ohtani now just 18 months removed from the Tommy John revision procedure he underwent at the end of the 2023 season, it’s a history the Dodgers are wary of repeating.
They know Ohtani could probably be ramping up as a pitcher more quickly right now. They believe that once he returns to the mound, he will look more like the Cy Young-caliber talent he was from 2021-2023, when he rebounded from his dismal 2020 performance by going 34-16 with a 2.84 ERA over the next three years.
But for a team that possesses an otherwise deep starting pitching staff and is primarily counting on Ohtani’s bat to help spearhead its World Series title defense, the Dodgers have taken an increasingly cautious approach to the two-way star’s pitching plan.
Tuesday marks one full month since Ohtani last threw a bullpen session. And while he is scheduled to get off a mound again on Saturday — in what would be his first bullpen since Feb. 25 — there remains no hard timeline for when he might eventually join the Dodgers’ rotation.
At this stage, there doesn’t really need to be.
“Once he gets through the ‘pen on Saturday, then we’ll have a better idea of what a plan looks like,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But I don’t really want to speculate too much. It’s hard to do that.”
This all marks a shift in tone from where the Dodgers were before the start of spring training, when Roberts initially targeted May, if not sooner, for Ohtani to be pitching in big-league games again.
That timeline tracked through the first several weeks of camp, with Ohtani completing four bullpen sessions in his first month at Camelback Ranch.
However, as soon as the slugger — who is also coming back from offseason surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left non-throwing shoulder — began playing in Cactus League games near the end of February, his bullpen sessions suddenly stopped.
Not because of an injury, the team insisted. Not because of dead arm or fatigue, either. In fact, during a news conference in Tokyo last week, Ohtani said his throwing program was going so well, he actually had the luxury to dial it back amid the logistical challenges of the team’s season-opening trip to Japan.
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“This is according to plan,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “I’m actually quite pleased with how things have been going.”
So why did Ohtani slow down his pitching ramp-up? And why is his timeline to returning to the mound suddenly so unclear?
Because, he acknowledged, right now he wants “to prioritize the hitting aspect” of his game. In the Dodgers’ view, any production they get from Ohtani’s pitching this year is something of a bonus. And in order to avoid the pitfalls he experienced in 2020, and avoid any added injury risk that could impact his performance or availability as a hitter this year, both the player and team seem content with allowing him to take his time completing his throwing program.
“Because things have been going according to plan,” Ohtani said, “this is a time where I can actually get a breather.”
Ohtani’s return to pitching this season always figured to be complicated. Throughout last season, Ohtani slowly increased his post-Tommy John throwing program, coming close to the point of once again facing hitters in live batting practice. But in October, he and the team decided to hold off on any live sessions until after the postseason, not wanting to risk over-stressing his body during his first career appearance in the playoffs.
When Ohtani tore his labrum sliding into second base in Game 2 of the World Series, it further delayed his timeline, requiring him to spend the early part of the winter rehabbing that injury after undergoing surgery in the first week of November.
Because of that, the long-awaited completion of Ohtani’s pitching recovery process will require some rehab gymnastics during this coming regular season.
A normal pitcher would likely spend about a month on a minor-league rehab assignment before returning to the majors, similar to what Walker Buehler did at the start of last season as he came back from a second career Tommy John procedure — a challenge in and of itself that few MLB pitchers have successfully recovered from.
But neither Ohtani nor the Dodgers want him to miss time as the team’s everyday designated hitter in order to go out on such a rehab stint. Thus, at some point, he will begin building up through simulated games likely to take place hours before he hits in a big-league game. His first time hitting and pitching in the same contest probably won’t come until he makes his full return as a two-way player in the big leagues.
While inevitable, it will create the kind of burdensome schedule that could invite a whole host of variables, putting the 30-year-old superstar in a situation he hasn’t experienced before in the majors.
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“We don’t really have a template or road map or even experience, really, dealing with a guy with a two-way situation,” pitching coach Mark Prior said earlier this month. “So we’re leaning on him, on how he’s feeling.”
Even though Ohtani has declared he feels good — so much so, he began re-incorporating a wind-up back into his delivery during his spring bullpens — the risk of ramping up too quickly, or routinely hitting pitching velocities his surgically repaired elbow might not yet be fully ready to handle, continues to outweigh the rewards of having him back on the mound sooner.
Remember, the Dodgers’ pitching staff should be good even without Ohtani. The team returns last year’s co-aces, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. They added two more potential aces, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, in free agency this offseason. And they have ample depth behind them, from Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin (who are coming back from their own elbow surgeries), to Landon Knack, Bobby Miller and, at some point, Clayton Kershaw (who is also expected to miss the first couple months of the season while recovering from offseason toe and knee surgeries).
What the Dodgers really want is to have Ohtani available as a potential impact pitching option come the stretch run of the season.
And though Roberts said the team “would bank that right now” when asked about the potential of Ohtani making 18-20 starts this season, it would not be a surprise if he only makes roughly half that amount during the next six months.
“This is a long-term play for Shohei’s well-being, so [we’re] making sure that we’re as cautious and careful as we possibly can be,” Roberts said. “For 2025, the most important piece of this is having him be able to do both through the end of the season, and through October.”
That might come as a disappointment to Dodgers fans who have yet to experience Ohtani’s pitching talents. It’s a sacrifice Ohtani himself will have to accept, marking the first time in his MLB career he hasn’t rushed back to full-time two-way duties as quickly as possible.
But if it means he and the Dodgers can avoid the kind of struggles he endured in 2020, it’s a trade-off everyone involved appears happy to make.
“The main thing is, we always [want to] have the guys at the end of the season,” Prior reiterated. “There are a lot of variables that are unique to his situation. So I think it’s just about having an open mind and trying to be cautiously optimistic and take the right approach.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Matthew Pouliot