GLENDALE, Ariz. — A week ago, if you had tried to show Bobby Miller video of a pitcher being hit by a line drive back to the mound, he wanted no part of it.
Now, he can’t seem to get enough.
“Yeah, probably a hundred times at least,” he said of watching replays of the 106-mph line drive that hit Miller in the head during Thursday’s game.
“Whenever I’ve seen a video of a pitcher getting hit in the head, I’ve never been able to watch that video. I’m always like, ‘Get that out of my face.’ I always feared that. But now that it’s happened I’ve been able to watch it. Scary moment but it’s all good. I’m all right.”
Miller experienced what he called “always kind of been one of my biggest fears” just 11 pitches into his first start of the spring.
Michael Busch’s line drive caught Miller flush in the head and dropped him to the ground.
“Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Miller said Saturday. “It kind of knocked me down but I was able to walk off all right.”
Miller said he never lost consciousness and didn’t experience any blurred vision. Scans discovered no fractures. Two days later, though, he was still feeling a headache and “some drowsiness.” He hasn’t slept “normal” since the incident, Miller said, because he can’t stop thinking about it.
“Adrenaline kind of really kicks in right there,” Miller said. “A couple seconds in, you don’t really feel it right away. It didn’t knock me out or anything. I didn’t lose any vision. I’m just glad it didn’t get me in the temple or the back of the head. It got me right in the front.
“God is great. He was watching me right there.”
Miller joked that he was also lucky to have “a hard head.”
He heard from Busch, a former teammate with the Dodgers and in the minors, as well as many others.
“I’m super grateful for that,” Miller said. “So many people were caring about me. That really means a lot that people were really wanting to know how I was doing.”
The question now is how long it will take Miller to recover and return to the mound. He will have to be symptom-free before he is cleared to return to workouts and then, eventually, games.
“I’ve just got to pass some steps,” he said.
“Hopefully that’s soon. I feel I can be out there soon but obviously it’s February still. Gotta do the right things.”
Although Miller acknowledges his long-standing fear about the dangers on the mound, he said he is not concerned about facing those fears again.
“Not really. Right now, I’m not nervous to go back out there,” he said. “When that moment comes, we’ll see what happens. All I’m thinking about is getting healthy and getting back on the field soon because that’s what I really want.
“I guess I don’t fear it as much having gone through it. It could have been a lot worse. I’m really thankful for that.”
OHTANI WORK
Shohei Ohtani threw his third bullpen session of the spring Saturday, increasing his pitch count to 25 – all two-seam, four-seam or cut fastballs. He threw 14 and 21 pitches in the first two bullpens and touched 95 mph for the first time Saturday.
“A really positive day for Shohei,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Really good stuff for Shohei.”
Ohtani continues to work out of the windup primarily (20 of the 25 pitches), a change from his approach when pitching for the Angels.
Roberts said he expects Ohtani to take live batting practice during Sunday’s workout and then start DHing in Cactus League games toward the end of next week.
PITCHING PLANS
Tyler Glasnow will make his first start of the spring Monday and Blake Snell will go Tuesday, according to Roberts.
Roki Sasaki is expected to pitch in a game for the first time Tuesday or Wednesday, but Roberts said it hasn’t been decided if Sasaki will pitch in a Cactus League game or on the minor-league side of the complex.
Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are expected to start the two regular-season games against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo on March 18 and 19. But Roberts said Glasnow and Snell are expected to make the trip and pitch in the two exhibition games scheduled at the Tokyo Dome on March 15 and 16.
“I just think it’s good for them to be around our ballclub and with their work and buildup, we’ll work around it and make it work,” Roberts said.
Dustin May will start Sunday’s Cactus League game against the San Diego Padres. It will be May’s first game action since elbow surgery in 2023 and emergency surgery to repair a torn esophagus in July.
RELIEVERS PROGRESS
Evan Phillips threw his first bullpen session of the spring Friday. He has recovered more quickly than anticipated from the torn ligament in his shoulder, Roberts said. But it is still “unlikely” that he will be on the active roster when the Dodgers return for their home opener March 27.
“We feel that, given his workload, intensity of it, to start a little bit later there’s just not a whole lot of cost with that,” Roberts said.
Michael Kopech threw off a mound Saturday for the first time this spring. But it was just a light throwing session with the catcher standing up. Kopech is not expected to be ready to open the season on the active roster either.