Reasonably predicting what Shohei Ohtani could contribute to Dodgers as a pitcher

Last Monday, Shohei Ohtani made his long-awaited Dodgers pitching debut, where he turned in one electric inning against the San Diego Padres. While the Padres scraped a run across the plate against him, he hit triple-digits with his fastball and induced two weak groundouts to end the frame.

While the electricity from that outing made it easy to dream of Ohtani being on the mound racking up scoreless inning after scoreless inning in the postseason, it’s important to remember the context around his injury when thinking about what’s next for the two-way superstar. Afrer all, he returned to the mound Sunday to ... only throw one inning again.

Reasonably predicting what Shohei Ohtani could contribute to Dodgers as a pitcher

The first thing to remember is the amount of time off that he’s had from pitching, as Monday’s outing marked his first appearance on the mound in nearly 22 months. He ended up throwing 28 pitches (16 strikes), and seemed a little rattled for the first time in his Dodgers tenure. 

It’s also important to remember that he’s ahead of schedule, as it initially looked like he wouldn’t be able to make a full return to the mound until late in the 2025 season — if at all.

Instead, he worked hard and recovered faster (which isn’t much of a surprise given his track record), and was able to get back to the mound in June. But, for the time being, it seems like his work will be limited to one- or two-inning outings. 

If that does remain the case, it’ll be interesting to see if the Dodgers consider using Ohtani in the bullpen. Granted, that would likely be incredibly hard given how tightly-packed his schedule already is, but he’s already proven he’ll do whatever to help the team win. He worked as a closer to lift Japan to victory in the World Baseball Classic in 2023; could he do the same to help the Dodgers win in 2025?

But if there’s one team that can handle the necessary changes that come with Ohtani’s pitching schedule, it’s the Dodgers. They’re perhaps MLB’s best at piecing together pitching success in unconventional ways (how they handled Emmett Sheehan and Justin Wrobleski last week is a perfect example of that), and Ohtani’s return is another reminder of that. 

Yes, there will likely be one or two games where the Dodgers’ pitching plans will be scrambled because of Ohtani’s injury, but that’s the cost of doing business when you have a one-of-a-kind superstar. 

In a perfect world, however, the Dodgers won’t need to rush Ohtani back because of their starting pitching depth. While Tony Gonsolin, Tytler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki are all on the injured list, the Dodgers still have Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw as starting pitchers along with having Wrobleski and Ben Casparius as swingman options. 

At this point, anything Ohtani gives the Dodgers on the mound is gravy, and it’s important to remember that. But we'd be projecting shorter spot starts/multi-inning relief appearances rather than seven-inning gems.