Roughly four hours before first pitch Monday night, Shohei Ohtani sat at his locker in the Dodger Stadium clubhouse and prepared for his biggest game of the season.
First, the reigning MVP unwrapped the black compression sleeve he wears when pitching, and pulled it over his right arm. Then, he grabbed his bat and a pair of hitting gloves and headed toward the cages.
On this day, each piece of equipment was needed.
For the first time in almost two years, the two-way star would be playing both ways again.
In the Dodgers’ series opener against the San Diego Padres on Monday, Ohtani made his long-awaited return as a pitcher from a September 2023 Tommy John operation, taking the mound in a Dodgers uniform for the first time as the club’s starting pitcher while also continuing to serve as their leadoff hitter in the lineup.
Ohtani’s pitching outing was brief, lasting just one inning. In it, the right-hander tossed 28 pitches, giving up one run on two hits (a pair of flare singles from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado) and a sacrifice fly from Manny Machado.
Ohtani’s form was far from flawless. While he touched 100 mph with his fastball, his command looked rusty, missing the zone 12 times, with one wild pitch. While he got three swing-and-misses, he failed to finish any of his five two-strike counts with a strikeout (though Machado nearly went around on a two-strike sweeper, needing a generous check-swing call from an umpire before lifting his sac fly).
When Ohtani finally retired the side, it felt more like a sigh of relief, with his climbing pitch count already leading to action in the bullpen.
And yet, the occasion was momentous nonetheless; marking the first time since August 2023 that Ohtani had pitched in a major league game, and showing even after a second career Tommy John surgery that there’s plenty of life still left in his arm.
“To take this on — the physical [toll], talent-wise, the psychology of it — this is a big undertaking,” manager Dave Roberts said. “As people say, he’s a unicorn.”
Initially, it appeared the Dodgers would have to wait at least another month before seeing Ohtani pitch in a game. Despite some optimism before spring training that Ohtani could resume pitching in April or May, the team had been slow-playing his pitching program since the start of the regular season, long targeting after the All-Star break to add him to their rotation.
“This is such a unique scenario,” general manager Brandon Gomes said. “[We were] making sure we're not doing anything to put the offensive side in jeopardy.”
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In the last couple weeks, however, that calculus started to change.
First, Ohtani impressed coaches and executives in three different live batting practice sessions, working his way up to three innings and 44 pitches in his most recent one in San Diego last week.
Then, in meetings with team officials, he expressed some concern with continuing to build up in more simulated sessions, relaying the toll it took on his body to pitch several innings in an afternoon before ramping up to DH later the same night.
“The getting hot, throwing a live at 1:30, 2:00, cooling down, coming back, getting ready to lead off the game — I can't even imagine how taxing that is,” said Gomes, a former big-league reliever. “There is no playbook for this. So it had to be an ongoing conversation, and making sure that Shohei is the one driving this conversation."
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And in recent days, Ohtani began to direct such conversations in a different direction, resulting in a quicker timeline to get him back in game action.
“It [was] more of like, ‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything else to do. I’m ready to go. What else do I need to do to get back on a major-league mound?’” Roberts recalled of Ohtani’s message to the team. “You try to treat him like a normal pitcher and a normal ramp-up or buildup. But if [he only needs to be built up for] an inning or two, it’s ‘Well, I’ve already done that.’”
Indeed, by that point, the Dodgers had already indicated that Ohtani wouldn’t need to be fully built-up to return to game action. Thanks to his status as a two-way player, they were open to bringing him back as a pitcher even if he would initially only throw one or two innings.
Thus came the pivotal question.
“‘Can I pitch now?’” Roberts recalled Ohtani asking.
The answer, the Dodgers decided over the last two days, was yes, slotting Ohtani in as an opener in front of bulkman Ben Casparius for Monday.
“It got to the point where [it was], ‘Hey, feels like we should take that next step,’” Gomes said, “and almost look to finish the rehab at the major league level, because of the taxing nature of what he was doing.”
Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani delivers against the Padres on Monday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Moving forward, Ohtani will likely continue to serve as an opener once per week; building up to two innings, then three, and so on until he’s able to handle a normal workload.
The exact plan will depend on how he responds to his return to two-way duties, with the Dodgers remaining wary of pushing him too hard on the mound before the stretch run of the season.
“As we said before, this is a unique situation, and making sure that he's in a good place and we're just taking it small bites along the way as far as what comes next is incredibly important,” Gomes said. “At each step, we'll have those discussions and make sure that that is the guiding light, to make sure that he's feeling as good as possible come October."
Still, for one night, one inning of watching Ohtani pitch was enough.
“We saw it from the other side, from afar, when he was with the Angels,” Roberts said. “So now, I think I got the best seat in the house to watch this guy start and then take an at-bat. This is bananas. So I’m thrilled.”
