LOS ANGELES \u2014 Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani has increased his throwing progression over the last week, and on Friday threw a bullpen session at Dodger Stadium three or so hours ahead of the team\u2019s game against the Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n
Ohtani last pitched in a game on July 3 in San Diego, and has been sidelined since with left knee inflammation. Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic has more on the bullpen session<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Dodgers have not put a firm timeline on Ohtani\u2019s return, which is complicated somewhat by his continued presence as the team\u2019s designated hitter. But Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said he still believes Ohtani could return and pitch in a big-league game before the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of it, we just need to take our time and see if he comes in feeling good tomorrow, and then OK, what\u2019s the next step?\u201d Gomes told The Athletic following Ohtani\u2019s bullpen session. \u201cA lot of it is just how he\u2019s bouncing back, and do we think it\u2019s prudent to keep progressing?\u201d<\/p>\n After Friday night\u2019s game, manager Dave Roberts said he was pleased with Ohtani\u2019s 35-pitch bullpen session, and laid out a timeline for a possible return to pitching. Ohtani will need to throw at least one more bullpen session, maybe two, then face hitters in a simulated game at least twice before he would return to the Dodgers.<\/p>\n Roberts said the team is willing to have Ohtani start even if he\u2019s only able to pitch an inning at first, much like his gradual ramp up in his return last June.<\/p>\n \u201cYou start to think about who the guys that he essentially would open for, and that sort of shortens the list,\u201d Roberts said of Ohtani. \u201cFor Shohei, knowing that any inning is additive is important, and it was a formula that worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Because Ohtani is a two-way player he doesn\u2019t count against the active roster limit of 13 pitchers, so any outs he secures on the mound are outs the bullpen wouldn\u2019t have to cover, which lessens their workload at no extra roster cost. The Dodgers have sorely missed those Ohtani innings since he last pitched, on July 3, and the bullpen\u2019s performance has worsened<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve missed [Ohtani], but also he was built up to six, seven innings, so you have a guy that\u2019s additive innings and you\u2019re getting zero, and have gotten for the last six, seven weeks,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThen you have the guys we feel we have to give them their rest, to do what they\u2019re used to doing. You know, there\u2019s a cost to doing business sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani has increased his throwing progression over the last week, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,38410,8505,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":["post-779371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-baseball","tag-dodgers","tag-dodgers-news-notes","tag-dodgers-links","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117099654290546654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}