WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Los Angeles Dodgers are set to begin their first road trip of the 2026 regular season, beginning tomorrow with a three-game series against the Washington Nationals.
However, after that, it’ll be a World Series rematch between the Toronto Blue Jays, and that’s when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hinted that Ohtani will make his second start on the mound.
While the team had an off-day today for travel, they will still reshuffle their starting rotation for the next six games, bringing in young lefty Justin Wrobleki as a spot starter, where he’ll make his first start on Monday in Toronto.
In Washington, D.C., the Dodgers will send right-handers Emmet Sheehan, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki in that order, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will follow Wrobleski in Toronto on Tuesday.
On April 8th, Game Three in Toronto will be led by Ohtani, who is coming off six scoreless innings against the Cleveland Guardians, which extended his scoreless innings streak for 22.2 innings dating back to last regular season.
The Dodgers figure to have Ohtani make his regular amount of starts in the rotation now that they’ll have him as a full two-way player for an entire season without any restrictions.
Ohtani is perceived by many as chasing not only a personal goal of being in the National League Cy Young conversation but also a desire to add hardware to his personal collection.
The biggest challenge for Ohtani in reaching his goal will be staying healthy enough to make regular starts and log a substantial number of innings. His 166 innings in 2022 marked a career high by a wide margin. Aside from that season, he’s only topped roughly 130 innings in 2021 and 2023, with injuries limiting his workload in other years.
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