{"id":839285,"date":"2026-09-07T08:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839285\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T08:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:20:11","slug":"shohei-ohtani-not-likely-to-pitch-again-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839285\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani Not Likely To Pitch Again In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been over two months since Shohei Ohtani<\/a> last threw a pitch in a big league game, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts downplayed the idea that Ohtani would be able to return to the mound before 2026 is over, either in the regular season or postseason.\u00a0 Roberts didn\u2019t \u201cofficially\u201d confirm Ohtani\u2019s pitching shutdown when speaking with Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register<\/a> and other reporters today, \u201cbut obviously, if you\u2019re looking at the calendar, how much he\u2019s thrown in the last week, I think we can all do the math.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani hasn\u2019t thrown since a bullpen session on August 28, which was reportedly going to be the final step before Ohtani started the Dodgers\u2019 game with the Tigers last Sunday.\u00a0 While that outing would\u2019ve just been a one-inning assignment as an opener, the plan was for Ohtani to gradually rebuild his arm strength over increasingly long stints of game action, so Los Angeles could\u2019ve at least had the option of using Ohtani as more or less a normal starter in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Those plans were scuttled, however, when Ohtani cut short that August 28 bullpen due to discomfort in his right knee specifically, and a sore right biceps.\u00a0 The situation extended to Ohtani being held out of the Dodgers\u2019 lineup entirely for the last four games, but Roberts feels Ohtani could be able to return to his regular DH duty on Monday since he was \u201cfeeling well\u201d following a batting practice session on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s two-way status complicated matters, as he has to be placed on the 15-day injured list for pitchers rather than the 10-day IL for position players.\u00a0 If the 10-day IL option was available, it is entirely possible the Dodgers might\u2019ve already retroactively put Ohtani on the 10-day.\u00a0 Even that might have been overly cautious if Ohtani is indeed feeling good enough to play on Monday, and putting him on the 15-day would\u2019ve (unnecessarily) put one of the game\u2019s best hitters on the shelf for even more time.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that Ohtani hasn\u2019t been hitting like his usual self for a month now, as he has hit .200\/.303\/.400 with four home runs over his last 109 plate appearances.\u00a0 This roughly coincides with the timing of when Ohtani restarted his throwing progression after some knee soreness led to a shutdown from throwing for a couple of weeks.\u00a0 It could be that the stress of trying to rehab more of a so-called \u201cmoving target\u201d of an injury (rather than the strict regimen of the UCL rehab process that Ohtani has followed twice in his career) while simultaneously regularly playing as a DH was too much for even a player as unique as the two-way superstar.<\/p>\n

With the postseason looming, the Dodgers seem happy to sacrifice Ohtani\u2019s contributions on the mound in order to get him right at the plate.\u00a0 L.A. was able to win the 2024 World Series without Ohtani pitching at all, of course, and the Dodgers already have Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>, Tarik Skubal<\/a>, Blake Snell<\/a>, and Tyler Glasnow<\/a> as their projected top four for the upcoming postseason.\u00a0 With this impressive rotation plus other arms like Roki Sasaki<\/a>, Eric Lauer<\/a>, Justin Wrobleski<\/a>, and others capable of covering bulk innings, having Ohtani pitch would\u2019ve almost been a luxury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been over two months since Shohei Ohtani last threw a pitch in a big league game,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[3956,99],"class_list":["post-839285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}