The Los Angeles Dodgers unveiled their plan for two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani, who will start the season for the first time as a Dodger, fully healthy and able to both pitch and hit.
Ohtani, a free agent from the Los Angeles Angels, joined the Dodgers. However, he was injured upon arrival, which restricted him to hitting during his recovery from UCL surgery.
The Japanese star is putting unprecedented wear on his body when both hits and pitches, straining his muscles all over the place, which made the Dodgers take their time ushering him back on the mound.
Ohtani did not pitch until his second season in Dodger Blue, though he has managed to stay healthy and available since returning over the summer.
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He pitched throughout the postseason, even doing so on short rest for Game 7 of the World Series. Heading into 2026, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained how Ohtani will be used during his tiresome October.
“The thought is to have Shohei being used as a regular starter, but it’s not going to be a regular five-man rotation,” Roberts said.
“I don’t want to go down the six-man rotation road, but I do feel that giving him six, seven, eight days off to kind of allow him to continue to stay rested and build up, I think that’s in our process.”
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In order to keep all of their starters healthy, the Dodgers will need to expand their organizational depth and use younger arms to rest players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell, both of whom went deep into games regularly.
“We just have some guys that have earned opportunities to make starts,” Roberts added. “And if we feel, at the end of the day, getting Yamamoto, Roki, potentially Emmet, Shohei some extra days rest and there’s not a cost, that’s the conversation we’re going to have.”
Ohtani pitched in 14 games during the regular season in 2025, totalling 47 innings and posting a 2.87 ERA. His stuff was as electric as ever, and if he stays healthy and pitches regularly, he could put together a Cy Young-caliber season.
Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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