Shohei Ohtani explains tough reality with how Dodgers will handle his pitching return

Fans are still likely to turn out in droves every time Shohei Ohtani is set to take the mound, but it's unlikely that they'll see him pitch anything more than an inning or two for some time, and maybe even through the rest of the season.

Ohtani's last appearance as an opener certainly made it look like he could handle more than one inning. He shook off some of the cobwebs from his Dodgers pitching debut, when he threw 28 pitches and gave up a run.

He only needed 18 against the Nationals and didn't allow a hit while notching his first two strikeouts as a Dodger. He mixed in a lot more offspeed stuff, and his fastball touched 98 MPH. Still, the Dodgers replaced him with bulk reliever Ben Casparius after the first inning.

After the start, both Ohtani and Dave Roberts used the word "gradual" to describe his build-up. Ohtani said, "I want to see improvements with the quality of the pitches that I’m throwing, and then also increasing the amount of pitches." Roberts added, "I think that it's more of just trying to get the foundation, the building blocks as he's [pitching and] taking at-bats. [We are] erring on the side of caution … There's no sense in rushing it right now."

Shohei Ohtani, Dave Roberts say Dodgers pitching ramp-up will be handled 'gradually'

The Dodgers are basically putting Ohtani through a rehab assignment set to maximum difficulty, and they need to be even more careful with him because he's also carrying out regular DH'ing duties. It was a joint decision between him and the team to pull him after one inning against the Nats, even though it looked like could do more.

So when will Ohtani actually be back to pitching regular starts? Roberts made it sound like it might not even happen this year. He said, "I think we're always gonna be cautious. So I don't even know what that's going to look like, to be 'fully built-up.' I don't think anyone knows what that looks like. Because it's not a normal starting pitcher. So to say six [innings] and 90 [pitches], I don't even know if we'll get to that point."

The Dodgers are kind of making it up as they go along, but they kind of have to. While the improvisation can be frustrating for fans who would like more clarity, we'll basically be finding out how much Ohtani will be able to handle at the same time as the team.