Shohei Ohtani will hit a milestone this weekend in his return to pitching. He’s slated to throw live batting practice to teammates before Sunday night’s game at Citi Field (link via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). It will be his first time throwing to hitters since his 2023 elbow surgery. Ohtani was initially expected to throw BP on Saturday, but the Dodgers pushed that back after last night’s 13-inning game — which also featured an early rain delay — went until 1:00 in the morning on the East Coast.
Ohtani has been throwing bullpen sessions for the past couple months. He got up to 50 pitches last weekend and has thrown his fastball in the mid-90s. Ardaya writes that Ohtani recently began to reintroduce his breaking stuff into those exercises. He’s still not expected to pitch in games until after the All-Star Break.
The Dodgers face a unique ramp-up process with the three-time MVP. He’s working back from his second major elbow operation. That’d have warranted caution even if he were just a pitcher. Every other pitcher would spend multiple weeks on a minor league rehab assignment before returning to an MLB mound. The Dodgers aren’t going to take Ohtani’s bat out of the big league lineup to do that. He required offseason surgery on his non-throwing shoulder after tearing his labrum on a slide during the World Series. They’ll also need to monitor his overall fatigue level as he builds his arm while continuing to hit every day. He has started 49 of their first 51 games at designated hitter.
That all produces a complicated rehab plan that has moved quite slowly. It has now been 20 months since Ohtani underwent the UCL repair that ended his Angels tenure. It hasn’t at all slowed his offensive dominance, of course. He has followed up last year’s unprecedented 50-50 season with a .302/.397/.643 line through 232 plate appearances. He leads the majors with 53 runs and is tied with Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Cal Raleigh for the league lead with 17 homers.