#MLBVideos: Shohei Ohtani is having the most unique return to the mound ever | MLB Deep Dive

Shohei Ohtani is having the most unique return to the mound ever | MLB Deep Dive

there has never been a player like Showi Otani Well he is the spectacular Show the unicorn I mean listen he’s one of one And there has never been an elbow rehab like Show Otanis He’s actually pitching today How is this happening time and again makes us rethink what is possible Let’s explore how Otani who already reinvented what is possible for the modern player reinvented the rehab process too and what it could mean for the defending World Series champion Dodgers this fall The first inning of the Angels home game against the Reds on August 23rd 2023 was typical of the two players for the price of one show Otani experienced In the top of the first inning he got TJ Fredel to ground out then struck out Matt Mlan and Ellie de la Cruz in succession with some nasty splitters There’s number 167 Ellie de la Cruz strikes out against Shi Otani punches out two in a two3 first inning We go to the bottom of the first Then Otani headed to the dugout grabbed his baton helmet and after a Luis Rango leadoff walk gave his team and himself a lead to work with with his 44th homer of the season There’s a rocket right field way back Long gone number 44 Otani Spectacular as he reclaims Major League Baseball’s home run lead That inning was a window into why Otani was well on his way to his second unanimous MVP honor in a threeseason span No one else in the American League or National League’s live ball era had both hit and pitched at an all-star caliber level and very few even dared to try There was truly only one Otani But that inning would prove to be the end of an era for the Angels Otani who had skipped his previous start because of arm fatigue came out of the second inning with a recurrence of the issue He would not pitch again that season At year’s end he had the second major elbow procedure of his MLB career The first such surgery had come in 2018 on the heels of Otani’s rookie of the year campaign After coming to the United States from Japan for his age 23 season Otani gave us a tantalizing look at the two-way experience but briefly he made just 10 starts on the mound before the elbow gave out While Otani was recovering from that Tommy John he was able to return to DH duties for the 2019 season And he had a good but not transcendent season at the plate with 18 homers 20 doubles and an 848 OPS In the winter prior to 2020 Otani completed his rehab process from Tommy John But as it turned out 2020 was strange for everybody Otani included The pandemic shortened season was Otani’s worst one at the plate and he was only able to make two ineffective starts on the mound before getting shut down from pitching because of discomfort in his arm Reflecting on this season later Otani would say that he felt quote pathetic because he was unable to hit and pitch the way he was accustomed to There were many in the baseball industry who argued that he ought to focus firmly on hitting and forget about the whole two-way thing But the Angels were committed to the idea of Otani making it work as a two-way MLB star And so was Otani He spent the off season prior to 2021 changing his diet his throwing program his use of data and technology and his pitch mix And from 2021 to 2023 he was a force of nature unlike anything MLB had ever seen at least up until he needed elbow surgery yet again And that surgery coincided with the end of the Angels contractual control of the now free agent Otani For an ordinary player the recovery from a second Tommy John procedure would drastically impede his market But not Otani He set a then free agent record with his $700 million deal with the Dodgers who like the Angels before them had no intention of Otani only being a DH though they knew that that would be his role in the first season of the deal Otani of course wasn’t just a DH in 2024 but a record setting one His 54 homer 59 steel season for the eventual world champs was both atypical in that it had never been done before and yet typical for Otani in that he’s accustomed to doing what’s never been done before A year earlier superstar Bryce Harper had been lauded for making it back from Tommy John to DH for the Phillies in only60 days from the procedure His 12th place finish in the MVP voting that year was considered a marvel But Otani took the concept of a quick recovery several steps further playing 159 games and winning his third MVP with an offensive season for the ages When spring training games began in 2025 Otani was roughly 18 months removed from his second reconstructive elbow surgery The average major league pitching patient is back on the MLB mound by then But the Dodgers had built a rotation of excellent excess returning Yoshi Nou Yamamoto bringing in Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki and getting Tyler Glasnau Clayton Kershaw Dustin May and Tony Gonelin back from injuries It appeared they had gulp too much pitching Otani meanwhile was so valuable to the Dodgers as a DH that it wasn’t worth it to risk an early season injury on the mound And so for the first 2 and 1/2 months of the season Otani continued to do extraordinary things at the plate and only at the plate His throwing progression off the mound was methodical and the Dodgers did not intend to bring him back as a starting pitcher until the second half But in MLB you have too much pitching until you don’t The 2025 Dodgers like the 2024 Dodgers before them demonstrated this with a litany of arm injuries that robbed them of much of that rotation Meanwhile Otani threw three simulated sessions on the side against Dodgers hitters And because MLB has a two-way player rule in which Otani does not count toward the limit of 13 pitchers on an active roster the temptation became too great to ignore With Otani pushing to pitch in a game the Dodgers broke from their patient plan and installed Otani as an opener on June 16th against the Padres’s They figured that if Otani was going to pitch the equivalent of an inning in a live batting practice session why not get that inning from him in a major league game in his first oneing start that day Otani was touched for a run but hit 100.2 mph on the gun Then true to form he wrapped two hits and drove in two runs at the plate He smacks the ball to left center field and he’s tied it up Otani’s given up a run and now he’s knocked in a run Otani climbs a ladder engulfs this one into right center field A base hit Tatis throwing to third Not in time Otani back to first His second run batted in Four in the inning In his second opener outing against the Nationals on June 22nd Otani threw a scoreless inning with two strikeouts as a pitcher And once again he wowed us with his plate performance Otani hits a fair ball down the line It’s into the corner Here comes Dalton rushing Show Otani unloads the bases with a triple Otani launches left center field This ball is at the wall Did that go off of a fan show Otani with a home run for Otani It’s home run number 26 And Otani’s got a five RBI day Though the starts were short and the command a little shaky Otani provided reminders of how bizarre and ultimately how fun it is to watch a team’s best hitter also pitch on the mound But for the Dodgers the equation is different than it was for the Angels The Dodgers not play off hopefuls but play off locks And as Glasnau and Snell near returns from their injuries there is an argument that Otani is still more valuable to the Dodgers as a hitter than a pitcher they can ill afford to lose him at the plate due to say an oblique injury suffered on the mound And so even in letting Otani pitch in MLB games the Dodgers have shown caution keeping his pitch count restrained while closely monitoring how the physical toll of the soontobe 31-year-old Otani’s pitching affects his hitting Otani himself has reduced his aggression on the base pass ever since he started throwing BP sessions As Otani builds up to a starter’s workload it will be fascinating to see if the Dodgers actually use him as a traditional starter or continue to lean more toward brief opening bursts And the biggest question looming over all of this is how Otani will be utilized in the postseason where his two-way skills have yet to be seen All we know is Otani’s desire to get back to doing what is to him natural has led to this strange but fun phenomenon of rehab outings taking place amid DH duties The player unlike any other is showing us a recovery unlike any other And no matter how many innings it leads to or how long it lasts it’s awesome to see the return of the two-way Otani

With how good of a hitter he is for the Dodgers lineup, Shohei Ohtani, the pitcher, has been rehabbing back from his elbow injury during live actual MLB games. He can’t do a rehab trip to the Minors, so he’s doing it against MLB-level pitching in actual games to get up to speed. This is one of the most unique rehab assignments in MLB history!

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