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The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani will start game one of the NLDS versus the Phillies. (Photo by Jay Biggerstaff\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia Phillies must face the unicorn: Shohei Ohtani the batter and the pitcher.<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, Ohtani will pitch in the playoffs when he starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Phillies in Game 1 of the best-of-five National League Division Series that begins in Philadelphia on Saturday (6:30 p.m. ET, TBS). Ohtani will also become the first player in Major League history<\/a> to start at least one game as a pitcher and at least one as a non-pitcher in a single postseason.<\/p>\n Ohtani \u2014 who took last year off from pitching while recovering from elbow surgery \u2014became the first MLB player with at least 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a season and led the Dodgers to a World Series victory over the New York Yankees in 2024. <\/p>\n The Dodgers eased Ohtani back onto the mound this year. He worked his way up from one-inning stints in June to a six-inning outing in his last start of the regular season on Sept. 23. He finished the year with 62 strikeouts and 2.87 ERA in 47 innings pitched.<\/p>\n So the obvious question is: Will Ohtani have any limitations when he takes the mound against the Phils? \u201cI just think he\u2019s just a normal starting pitcher now,\u201d Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Los Angeles, that means Ohtani is cleared to unleash his full six-pitch arsenal, which includes a 100-mph fastball \u2014 and that\u2019s potentially horrible news for Phillies batters because this is what they\u2019ll be getting:<\/p>\n Former Phillies general manager and current broadcaster Ruben Amaro said the Phils must game-plan for Ohtani\u2019s elite swing-and-miss stuff by attacking early in the count.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019m facing him, I\u2019m looking for a fastball or something that\u2019s up in the zone,\u201d Amaro said on The Phillies Show<\/a> that dropped Friday. “I\u2019m going to have to be aggressive on it early, because if you get to two strikes, you\u2019re talking about six different pitches and you can\u2019t eliminate anything, and you\u2019re just looking for the baseball.”<\/p>\n Amaro also said Phillies batters also must “distinguish hittable pitches from non-hittable pitches\u201d to be successful against Ohtani. That\u2019s something Phils batters didn\u2019t do when Ohtani tossed five hitless innings against them on Sept. 16.<\/p>\n