Dave Roberts<\/a> said. \u201cHe\u2019s always going to deliver. Yeah, I thought he would be a little bit more rusty than he was today. The breaking ball was good, got some swing and miss. The fastball command, he was working ahead in the count today. So across the board, really good.\u201d<\/p>\nOhtani limited the San Francisco Giants to one hit and overshot the innings goal Roberts laid out Wednesday morning by pitching to one batter in the fifth inning. Ohtani didn\u2019t give up a run in those 4 \u2153 innings, and the only other blemishes on the performance were a pair of walks and a hit batter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty happy with the pitch count today,\u201d Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. \u201cIn terms of the next outing, I do want to be better at executing in two-strike counts. I just didn\u2019t finish off hitters as much as I wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani is scheduled to make a start in the Freeway Series against the Angels before his first start of the season. If the rest of spring training goes smoothly, Roberts said he expects Ohtani to be ready to throw about five innings in his first regular-season start.<\/p>\n
At that length, the Dodgers won\u2019t need to designate long relievers to piggyback Ohtani\u2019s starts. But Roberts stressed the importance of still carrying relievers who can throw multiple innings as the starters continue to build up early in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the season starts you\u2019ve got to see how he\u2019s feeling, how his stuff looks, how he\u2019s throwing the baseball,\u201d Roberts said after the Dodgers\u2019 5-1 win that was stopped after the eighth inning due to the heat.<\/p>\n
Most of Ohtani\u2019s build-up has taken place outside of competition, as he balanced playing in the World Baseball Classic for Team Japan as a position player, and addressing pitching on the side. By last week, he\u2019d ramped up to a four-inning live batting practice session against his teammates on the national team in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt actually didn\u2019t feel like it was my first spring training outing,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cI do see this as more of an extension of a live BP situation. So it didn\u2019t feel too bad going into this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani didn\u2019t hit on Wednesday. With the heat and his unique spring, the team wanted to let him focus on pitching. He\u2019s expected to be the designated hitter in Cactus League play Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the hitting, it did help that I played in an atmosphere that was pretty intense and competitive,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cSo the fact that I had to get things going earlier in the offseason maybe was the only thing that really affected my preparation. But I think it helped me more so than it hurt me, as I played through these meaningful games in the World Baseball Classic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani used a wide range of his arsenal Friday, landing an especially effective curveball for a called third strike against Heliot Ramos in the fourth inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever really surprised with him,\u201d catcher Dalton Rushing said. \u201cEveryone knows what he\u2019s capable of. Everyone knows his main goal when he goes out there. He expects perfection every single time. And I think he was very, very close to it today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> PHOENIX \u2014 A sparse crowd braved the heat, which was approaching 100 degrees when Dodgers right-hander…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[103193,426,103191,103192,423,3896,23932,48,52,51,47,50,49,10353,10250,424,24126,278,4610,103194,1027],"class_list":["post-226743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag--innings","tag-dodgers","tag-first-spring-training-outing","tag-first-start","tag-game","tag-heat","tag-innings","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-national-team","tag-ohtani","tag-roberts","tag-sasaki","tag-season","tag-thing","tag-third-inning","tag-wednesday-morning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}