Shohei Ohtani appears ready for the MLB season to start. But maybe not for a full start.
The Los Angeles Dodgers superstar finished off spring training on Tuesday by with an impressive showing against his former team, the Los Angeles Angels. He posted 11 strikeouts against his first 14 batters, but left in the fifth after allowing three straight singles.
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His final line: 4-plus innings, 4 hits, 3 ER, 2 walks and 11 strikeouts on 86 pitches. He also went 1-for-2 at the plate.
As much as Ohtani and the Dodgers would have likely preferred a complete shutdown performance, the more important information from a spring training start is the pitch count and how his stuff looked.
Shohei Ohtani’s velocity ticked down significantly in last inning
Ohtani’s pitching has been something of an unknown this spring. It’s the first time he’s entered spring training with plans to be a part of the Dodgers’ spring training rotation, but he didn’t pitch in a game at all until he returned from Japan’s World Baseball Classic team.
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While working as a full-time hitter for Japan, he was stretching out with bullpen sessions and simulated games on the side. That’s how he got up to 61 pitches in his first spring training start last week, while throwing as hard as 99.9 mph.
The Dodgers were clearly interested in stretching him out even further on Tuesday. He was sitting at 79 pitches after four dominant innings, but the team still sent him back out there.
It was evident he was feeling some fatigue at that point. He averaged 98.4 mph with his four-seam fastball in his first start, but had ticked down to 96.5 mph across Tuesday. And the three fastballs he threw in the fifth inning: 94.2 mph, 93.4 mph and 93.5 mph. The latter two pitches were both sinkers, but those numbers were also more than a tick down from the rest of his spring training sinkers.
Compare that to his final batter of the fourth inning, when he reached as high 96 mph with his four-seamer and 97.3 mph with his sinker.
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Is that concerning for the Dodgers? A sudden drop in velocity can often be a red flag for injury, but in this case it seems more feasible Ohtani was simply stretched out a little longer than advisable.
How will Ohtani’s first full season in Dodgers rotation go?
Ohtani spent his first season with the Dodgers as a full-time hitter. He returned to the mound in June of his second season and spent much of the season under limitations, as the Dodgers were clearly more interested in ensuring he would be starting for them in the postseason.
All of that obviously went down just fine for the Dodgers, who will be going for their third straight World Series title in 2026. Where it gets interesting, however, is what they plan to do with Ohtani as a full-time pitcher throughout the season.
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Ohtani has never thrown more than 166 innings in a season, regular season and postseason combined, and that was four years ago in 2022. A full season of pitching on his usual schedule (once every six or seven days) might get him there in the regular season alone.
You can usually bet on the Dodgers to know what they’re doing, it’s just notable the team was willing to stretch their golden arm out past 80 pitches shortly before the season when the more predictable route might have been starting him out in a limited capacity and letting him build up as the months progress.
However many pitches or innings Ohtani is throwing, the Dodgers are set to open the season with a rotation consisting of him, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Roki Sasaki, with Justin Wrobleski available as a sixth starter for stretches when the rotation can’t get a rest day in between turns.