The two-way superstar hasn’t pitched in a game since July 3 because of lingering pain in his left knee and right biceps. Ohtani threw a 20-pitch\u00a0bullpen session\u00a0last Friday but was scratched from a potential start at Detroit two days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think physically he\u2019s in a good spot,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday. \u201cI haven\u2019t heard otherwise as far as him ailing, whether it\u2019s the arm, the knee. Everything that he\u2019s told me and the training staff, he feels good.”<\/p>\n
Roberts said that until he sees Ohtani throw another bullpen he won’t know the next step in his pitching progression.<\/p>\n
Asked if it’s possible Ohtani won’t pitch again this season, Roberts said, \u201cIt’s an option.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before being shut down, Ohtani was 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Ohtani can’t start on the mound, would he be a candidate to play at an outfield corner?<\/p>\n
\u201cNot on the table right now,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
Ohtani hasn’t played the outfield in the major leagues since 2021, when he appeared there in seven games for the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n
If Ohtani isn’t physically capable of starting a game, it’s possible he could enter as a reliever.<\/p>\n
If he starts as the designated hitter and then moves to the mound, the so-called Ohtani Rule would kick in and the Dodgers would lose their DH for the rest of the game. But if he moves from the mound to the outfield, he could remain in the lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly know the value of him pitching, but if you\u2019re not 100 per cent, there\u2019s possibly some bleed-in to the performance offensively,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAny inning that he gives us is added value. The cost is, does it affect his health? So there\u2019s really no timeline, definitive deadline to say, \u2018Hey, this is where we\u2019re going to stop.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two-way superstar hasn’t pitched in a game since July 3 because of lingering pain in his left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-881405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}