PHILADELPHIA — Shohei Ohtani has never taken the mound at Citizens Bank Park, let alone in a highly charged playoff game. But from his previous experience hitting at the Phillies’ home ballpark, he knows to expect intensity from the crowd and a rocking atmosphere from start to finish.
“One thing I do know,” he said on Friday, through interpreter Will Ireton, “is that they serve really good Philly cheesesteaks at the clubhouse.”
Ohtani is on the verge of checking off a big league first that has been a long time in the making — his first postseason start as a pitcher. When he takes the mound against the Phillies in Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Saturday, he will become the first player in Major League history to start at least one game as a pitcher and at least one game as a non-pitcher in a single postseason.
Last year, before the Dodgers’ World Series run began, Ohtani was quick to say that he had no nerves surrounding his first taste of big league playoff action. This year is a little different, as it marks the first time he’ll be a fully actualized two-way player in the postseason.
“I’m sure I’ll be nervous at times,” Ohtani said. “But more than that, I’m just really grateful that I get to play baseball at this time of the year. And just being healthy is really important to me, so I’m just grateful for that.”
After a second major surgery on his right elbow in September 2023, Ohtani went down a long and winding road to return to pitching. For much of this year, the Dodgers intentionally slow-played his rehab, but he ramped up in earnest once he began facing hitters and ended up taking the big league mound sooner than had been expected, in mid-June.
Even though he was back to pitching in games, Ohtani was essentially still rehabbing — just at the big league level. It was a process as unique as Ohtani’s two-way skill set, as the Dodgers had to figure out the best method of building up his arm while not compromising his ability to slot in as their leadoff hitter every day.
It was a regimented process, and the caution with which the Dodgers operated was especially apparent when he was removed after five hitless innings against the Phillies on Sept. 16, despite having thrown only 68 pitches, in his penultimate start of the regular season.
But that marked a turning point. From then on, Ohtani felt that he was no longer in rehab mode as a pitcher. He stretched out to six innings in his final regular-season start, and earlier this week, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Ohtani was now considered a regular starting pitcher.
“If it’s six innings — it could be seven innings — I think this is something we’ve been waiting for all year,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s ready for this moment. So, for me, I’m just going to sit back and watch closely. But as he said earlier, just treat him like a regular pitcher.”
Given how unreliable their bullpen has been this year, the Dodgers have sorely needed length from their starters. Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave the team just that in the two-game sweep of the Reds in the NL Wild Card Series, and they’ll follow Ohtani in that order in Games 2 and 3 against the Phillies.
Ohtani dominated when he pitched against the Phillies at Dodger Stadium, retiring 15 of the 16 batters he faced just 2 1/2 weeks before he’ll face them again in the Division Series. But just as he gleaned what he can do effectively against them, they now have more information on how he might approach their lineup.
Then again, if Ohtani has everything working like he did back then, there’s only so much any given opponent can do to adjust to him.
“A couple weeks ago was probably his best start of the year,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He was phenomenal. It’s the combination of power and control, command, stuff. He was really good. He was pumping strikes, and it was 98, 99 [mph]. And the secondary pitches are all way above average. So if he’s doing that, it’s a tough task.”
