For the first time in over a year, and for the first time in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform, Shohei Ohtani is set to pitch in an MLB game. He's an extraordinary hitter, but what makes Shohei Ohtani arguably the greatest player ever is his ability to both hit and pitch at an extremely high level.
The version of Ohtani we'll see on Monday isn't going to be the Ohtani we're used to seeing on the mound as he's expected to serve as an opener and only pitch a couple of innings at most, but with the Dodgers needing starting pitching, getting Ohtani back in game action as a pitcher is a huge deal.
Ohtani will need some ramp-up time, but there's reason to believe he'll be fully built up around or shortly after the All-Star break. When Ohtani returns to full strength as a pitcher, here's what the Dodgers' rotation might look like.
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Projected Dodgers rotation when Shohei Ohtani is fully built up
Dodgers Rotation Order | Pitcher |
|---|---|
1 | Shohei Ohtani |
2 | Yoshinobu Yamamoto |
3 | Clayton Kershaw |
4 | Dustin May |
5 | Ben Casparius |
6 | Emmet Sheehan |
Having Ohtani as a dual threat is awesome, but his presence does mean that the Dodgers will almost certainly be going to a six-man rotation full-time. The Los Angeles Angels were exclusively using a six-man rotation with Ohtani, and there's no reason to believe that the routine-oriented Ohtani will want anything different. Fortunately, by the time Ohtani is fully stretched out, the Dodgers should have more depth.
In addition to Ohtani making his Dodgers debut on the mound, Los Angeles is expected to activate Emmet Sheehan off the IL sometime this week. Sheehan made 13 appearances and 11 starts for the Dodgers in 2023 and was once seen as an exciting prospect, but he underwent Tommy John Surgery, knocking him out of action for the entire 2024 campaign.
Those returns, in addition to Ben Casparius being converted to a starter, give the Dodgers a makeshift six-man rotation that's good enough to get them by for a while. The hope is that guys like Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow will return sometime within the next month or two, but it's anyone's best guess as to when that'll happen.
Shohei Ohtani's return to the mound couldn't have come at a better time
Ohtani's pitching return was perfectly timed. This Dodgers roster is as talented as any in MLB history, but the injuries are simply absurd at this point. Los Angeles has 14 pitchers on the injured list, eight of whom are starters.
Ohtani might only go a couple of innings at most for now, but even then, the Dodgers don't have many pitchers they can fully trust outside of Yoshinobu Yamamoto right now. Whatever they can get from Ohtani for now until he's fully ramped up should help them a ton.
All the Dodgers hope is that his return will be the first of many before more injuries come about.