LOS ANGELES — After an NL Wild Card Series to remember, the Dodgers have an ace up their sleeve.
In his eighth big league season — and his second playoff run — Ohtani is finally set to make his postseason pitching debut. He will be the first player in Major League history to start at least one game as a pitcher and at least one as a non-pitcher in a single postseason.
“I know that Sho will revel being in that environment and pitching in Game 1,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “I think we have a really talented rotation. I think it’s going to be a strength for us if we go forward.”
After spending the first year and change of his Dodgers tenure rehabbing from a second major surgery on his right elbow, Ohtani returned to the mound in June, going 1-1 with a 2.87 ERA and progressively building up his workload across 14 starts. He struck out 62 against only nine walks, creating a new type of 50-50 club as the only Major Leaguer to have both 50 homers and 50 strikeouts in one season.
Ohtani really ramped up in his final two starts of the regular season, tossing five hitless innings against the Phillies on Sept. 16 at Dodger Stadium before stretching out to six innings for the first time this season on Sept. 23 at Chase Field.
Earlier in the season, as the Dodgers pondered how best to build up Ohtani’s arm while not compromising his workload as the starting designated hitter, the thought was that the two-way superstar would be tentatively capped at five innings per start for the entire season. But in late September, Ohtani expressed to Roberts that he wanted to do whatever he could to help the team, including pitching deeper into games.
At this point, the Dodgers don’t foresee any real restrictions on how they’ll use Ohtani on the mound.
“I just think he’s a normal starting pitcher now. Kind of eased him along,” Friedman said. “Just a normal starting pitcher.”
The rotation carried the Dodgers through a two-game sweep of the Wild Card Series, with both Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto setting the tone by pitching into the seventh inning.
Los Angeles should be set up well in that regard in the Division Series, too, with Ohtani set to start in Game 1. Tyler Glasnow, who was available in relief in the series against the Reds but did not make an appearance, would have plenty of rest for Game 2 on Monday, although the Dodgers could opt to turn to Snell on five days’ rest instead.
The reigning World Series champions aced their first test. Now comes the next stage of their title defense.
“It’s going to be a fun environment, “Roberts said. “I think we match up really well with those guys. They’re going to run a bunch of left-handers at us. Talented, all throughout the lineup. They got Trea [Turner] back. It’s going to be a fun series.”
