Shohei Ohtani throws live batting practice session 19 months after Tommy John surgery
- Share via
NEW YORK — It had been 641 days since Shohei Ohtani last threw a pitch to a live hitter from a big league mound.
At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, inside an empty Citi Field on a cool afternoon in Queens, he finally did so again — this time, for the first time, in a Dodger blue uniform.
Nineteen months removed from a second career Tommy John procedure that has limited the two-way star to hitting-only duties during his first season and a half with the Dodgers, Ohtani threw a live batting practice session on Sunday in what was the biggest step in his pitching progression yet.
“It was a really good first step,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “I haven’t thrown in a while, so it was nice to be able to feel like I was a pitcher.”
In five at-bats against Hyeseong Kim, Dalton Rushing and game-planning coach J.T. Watkins, (who pitched in so that Ohtani didn’t risk hitting any of the team’s actual right-handed hitters), Ohtani threw 22 pitches. He was 94-97 mph with his fastball.
“I try to keep it 93-94, but I know I was touching 96 and 97s; which I wanted to not do, but it’s a good sign that I could hit that,” he said.
He used a full repertoire of sinkers, cutters and sweepers, having only begun using the latter pitch in flat-ground sessions over this last week.
And — with two strikeouts, one walk, a comebacker he fielded on the mound, and only one hit allowed to Kim on a line drive to right — he further raised hopes about the potential in his arm, even coming off another major procedure.
“It was a big jump today, from what I understand, from the bullpens to here facing hitters,” said manager Dave Roberts, who has targeted some point after the All-Star break to have Ohtani potentially join the Dodgers’ rotation.
“If it kind of works out as it should, he’s a top-end starter,” Roberts added, “and so that’s kind of all of our expectations.”
The most striking part of Sunday’s session was how overjoyed the 30-year-old Ohtani looked back in a simulated pitching environment.
He joked with coaches and laughed with teammates throughout the session. He sarcastically pumped his fist after fanning Watkins (a former minor league catcher in the Boston Red Sox organization) with a wicked sinker. He yelled to Teoscar Hernández (who was one of several teammates watching from the dugout) after Kim’s line drive to right, asking if he would have caught the ball. And he was greeted by a round of fist bumps and high-fives from staff members after throwing his final pitch.
“I think today was great because he was able to keep the mood light, but be able to maintain real stuff,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “I think that’s always important. He didn’t look like he was having stress or [was] under stress to amp up, try to generate any of his power. He was loose and it was all free and easy. So that’s always a positive.”
Ohtani will probably keep building up through regular live batting practices and simulated games over the coming two months, rather than miss time with the big league team to go on a minor league rehab assignment.
“I feel pretty confident with this way of going about rehabbing,” Ohtani said. “I’ve done this before previously. So as long as I’m getting the pitch count, the intensity in, I feel pretty good I’ll be well-prepared.”
It will be a delicate balance, trying to push Ohtani through the final stages of his pitching recovery without diminishing his potency as a hitter.
“When you start to ramp up, facing hitters and doing back-to-backs and upping the innings, that takes a lot more mindful bandwidth and also physical exertion,” Roberts said. “So that’s going to be interesting to see how he handles all this.”
But, given the quality of stuff Ohtani flashed on Sunday, worth it for a Dodgers team that might need him to bolster their currently banged-up rotation for the stretch run of the season.
“It’s power stuff, and he knows how to get guys off his best pitch,” said Rushing, who was Ohtani’s other strikeout victim. “That’s what really good pitchers do to be successful.”
Sunday had been a long time coming for Ohtani, the three-time MVP with a career 3.01 ERA in 86 career big league starts.
Last year, at the outset of his pitching rehab, Ohtani progressed from simple catch play to regular bullpens by the end of the regular season. He wasn’t far off from being able to face hitters by the time the playoffs started, but the Dodgers decided to dial back his pitching progression so he could focus on his first career MLB postseason.
Hernández: It’s tempting to rush Shohei Ohtani back on the mound, but the Dodgers shouldn’t do it
Columnist Dylan Hernández writes that the Dodgers could use Shohei Ohtani’s arm, but they absolutely need his bat, and even a lack of pitching depth should not expose him to any risks on the mound.
An offseason surgery on Ohtani’s non-throwing left shoulder further delayed his pitching plan entering spring camp this year, limiting him only to a handful of bullpens before the club departed for its season-opening trip to Japan.
Ohtani resumed semiweekly bullpens once the regular season started — lighter sessions on Wednesdays followed by more intensive ones on the weekends — and had been increasing the number of pitches in his bullpens over recent weeks.
This past week, he also began reincorporating his sweeper for the first time since getting hurt, one of the last boxes he had to check before Sunday’s live BP.
While the Dodgers have been wary of laying out the specific checkpoints that remain before Ohtani can join the team’s rotation, Roberts said it’s unlikely he pitches any big league games until after the All-Star break.
Shohei Ohtani moves a step closer to returning to the mound and other Dodgers pitchers on the IL could return soon.
“I just think that you’re talking about end of May, he’s doing his first simulated game,” Roberts said Saturday night. “And in theory, you got to build a starter up to five, six innings. And so just the natural progression, I just don’t see it being before that.”
Still, Sunday was the most tangible sign yet of Ohtani’s nearing return to pitching.
“He has taken a very methodical approach to this. We’ve tried to take a very methodical approach to this, understanding the uniqueness of the situation,” Prior said. “I will never, and I don’t think anybody in that room would ever, doubt what he can do. But, you know, still got a long way to go. We’ll see where it comes out at the end of this year.”
Are you a true-blue fan?
Get our Dodgers Dugout newsletter for insights, news and much more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
