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As the Los Angeles Dodgers begin their defense of their 2024 World Series championship, they appear to be heavy favorites again after an offseason during which they added Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki and left-hander Blake Snell, relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates, infielder Hyeseong Kim and outfielder Michael Conforto.
That’s pushed the team’s payroll up to a reported $379 million, the largest in baseball history.
However, Shohei Ohtani is still the Dodgers’ global superstar, coming off his third MVP award (first in the National League) and becoming Major League Baseball’s first 50-50 player.
Amazingly, Ohtani can offer even more to the Dodgers in 2025 because the two-way sensation didn’t pitch last season while recovering from elbow surgery. But he’s expected to pitch this year and took a big step toward returning to the mound on Saturday, throwing his first bullpen session at the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona.
Ohtani threw 14 pitches during the session, his first since last season. Throwing two-seam and four-seam fastballs, he reached 92 to 94 mph on the radar gun as reporters and fans watched.
“For a first day, that’s great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said afterward.
“He was looking early on velocity, and then he was looking for his two-seamer, the depth and movement of the two-seamer,” Roberts added, via USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “So just to kind of line it with what he feels. But it’s interesting that he’s very good at knowing what his stuff does, and so a lot of his thoughts line up with what the metric says.”
Roberts projected that Ohtani could face hitters by the end of spring camp, before the team departs for Tokyo and a two-game set versus the Chicago Cubs on March 18-19. However, he likely will not pitch in any Cactus League games.
Ohtani isn’t expected to be ready to pitch for the first two months of the season, and is projected to take the mound sometime in May. That will be the first time he’s pitched in a major league game since Aug. 23, 2023.
Until Ohtani is available to pitch, Roberts expects the Dodgers to work with a five-man rotation of Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Sasaki, with up to six pitchers competing for the fifth spot, including Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Bobby Miller.
Ohtani’s best MLB season as a pitcher was 2022 when he made 28 starts and finished with a 15-9 record, 2.33 ERA and 219 strikeouts in 166 innings. He has a career ERA of 3.01 with a rate of 11.4 Ks per nine innings in 86 starts.