The wear and tear that has affected Los Angeles Dodgers was more marked on Tuesday night, when Matt Sauer, a 26 -year -old officer, was called to launch bulk tickets and ended up launching 111 throws, a race and at least 29 more than he had at any time in the last two years. He was followed by Enrique Hernández, the Efervescent Public Services player of the team, who registered the last seven outs of an unequal defeat against San Diego's parents launching cross -body cutters who barely reached 50 mph, marking the first time in at least 67 years that a Dodgers position player had been summoned by more than two entries.
Such is the state of the Dodgers launch team. Its injury rate is once again alarming, the advantage of the team division has become tiny for that, and the anticipation of the return of Shohei Ohtani to the launch continues to intensify.
Ohtani participated in his third simulated game before the Dodgers displayed the lower part of their depth table against their largest rivals, increasing up to 44 pitches. His first beginning since August 23, 2023 could be just one month away. But the Dodgers promise to remain cautious, no matter how short they can be. Ohtani's bat is too valuable. Your bidirectional future is too precarious.
“Seeing it on a short -term horizon, it is easy to want to be aggressive and thrust, I think that both of him and us,” said Dodgers baseball operations, Andrew Friedman. “But I proposed to see this how to put it in the best position to launch in the next nine years and prioritize longevity, and this first year back, it is really important that this long -term aspect is not too aggressive at this time.”
Ohtani, however, is forcing the problem. Around 2 in the afternoon on Tuesday, he completed three tickets and compiled six strikeouts against a pair of low -level league leagues, throwing his fast ball in the mid -90s and unleashing a handful of unpleasant sweepers. Later, the manager of the Dodgers, Dave Roberts, covered Ohtani's possibilities to join the rotation before the rest of the stars in “North of Zero”, a sign that the timeline could have accelerated, even if it is only slightly. Ohtani's bidirectional designation offers the luxury of an additional pitcher, allowing Dodgers to bring him back before he stretches completely. The command that is already showing only has made it more attractive.
But as this process has demonstrated, things can change.
After navigating through a launch progression towards the end of the regular season 2024, the Dodgers forged a plan in which Ohtani would essentially stop throwing during the playoffs and would pick up relatively early in the winter again. Then, Ohtani, he scratched a farm on his left shoulder in game 2 of the World Series, which requires low seasonal surgery and what led to spring training that is essentially classified as its out -of -season launch program.
He paused before the season opening series in Japan in mid -March, then accumulated slowly after the Dodgers returned to the United States. Later, when unforeseen circumstances arose, an extra entrance game in New York, an unfavorable climate in St. Louis, their launch sessions were expelled. Ohtani must still be extended to the neighborhood of 70 releases before Dodgers may think about unlocking it as a pitcher, even if he initially does not throw so many in a game. When you return, it will have 22 or 23 months of surgery that usually comes with a timeline of 12 to 14 months.
His recovery has forced Dodgers to be agile, but above all, to be patients.
“We need to be healthy,” said the third base of the Dodgers, Max Muncy. “They move slowly, and we are all happy with that. Obviously we want them to launch, but we want it to be healthy in the first place. When you are doing what you are doing, it is so unprecedented that I do not know if there is an adequate timeline. It could be moving faster than it should be moving now; we really do not know because it has never really done before.”
As dominant as Ohtani has proven to be as a pitcher: he recorded an effectiveness of 2.84 and compiled 542 strikeouts in 428⅓ inputs from 2021 to 2023 before suffering a second tear of his ulnar collateral ligament: its impact on the offensive has become too important for risk.
Since the beginning of the 2023 season, the last with Los Angels, Ohtani, occupies the first place in the largest in Homers (121), second in PAHO (1,042), fifth on average batting (. Last year, he rented the 50/50 club while becoming the first full -time batter to win an MVP. This year, it is reducing .292/.386/.625 while it is in a rhythm of 54 homers, coinciding with a maximum of his career that established the season before.
However, its stolen base rate has been reduced to 26-33 less than what it counted in 2024. Ohtani stole its 11th base on May 20 and has not registered one since then. His precaution in the bases has coincided with the escalation of his launch rehabilitation. Roberts said he did not know if there was a direct correlation, and Ohtani, who rarely interviews, has not made himself available to talk about her. But the fall emphasizes the resistance required to hit and launch simultaneously.
Dodgers have been guided by that thought.
“I can't imagine how exhausting it is to do both,” said Friedman. “It is one thing when you are in that rhythm and you are fit for that. But it has been a while since he did both, and this is quite unexplored because we have never been close to a guy who does at this level. Therefore, he is only trying to do everything we can accumulate the muscles in the right arm, but also accumulate the effort from a body of the body Do it.
When Ohtani first joined the Dodgers and began to reach the progression in the spring of 2024, almost all his swings were precisely 70 mph. Later that summer, when he began to play with more intensity, had the habit of guessing the precise speed of his releases and was almost always right. Brandon McDaniel, who was the strength and conditioning coach of the Dodgers and performance director of the players before being elevated to the coaching staff this season, has spent two decades working with elite athletes and has never met one as in tune with his body like Ohtani.
“It's almost as if he had a monitor in his engine, on the front, like a board,” McDaniel said.
Most are good to follow the mapping scripts for their rehabilitations, McDaniel explained, but Ohtani does not seem to need one. His feeling of what his body requires at a given time has no parallel. And therefore, so Dodgers have been with Ohtani's pitching progression, they have also become without fear that he gets too hard and retreated. Through that, a trust has been developed.
“Obviously wants to push; he has been pressing,” McDaniel said. “But it has been a great balance to take very calculated attacks when we are going to push and when we are going to add veil and when we are going to add turn, things like that. And, ultimately, because he is a two -way player, we do not have a clock. And when he feels he is ready, that is the first part of the conversation.”
The Dodgers deployed a 40 -pitched franchise record during the 2024 season, then set up a rotation of three men and continuous bullpen games to a championship. This year was supposed to be different and yet it has been disturbingly similar. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki, three headlines that were expected to face one of the best rotations in the sport, are out with shoulders related ailments, joining another 11 pitchers on the injured list. Dodgers have already used 30 players to launch, more than any other team in sport. His bullpen leads the elders in entries by a wide margin.
But Ohtani is coming in the background, his launch return is quickly becoming close enough to imagine. The accumulation alone has been remarkable. Its simulated games, which will continue to grow in volume weekly, usually end approximately four hours before the first launch, after which Ohtani sails through a maintenance program on the left shoulder and the right elbow, while the rest of the Dodgers' batters prepare for the initial pitcher of that night. Then, as it used to be so often, take a bat and turn a switch.
Ohtani is 4 of 11 with a homer after his three simulated games this season, a snapshot of what is to come.
“It's fun to see it because the game is very much,” said the reliever of the Dodgers Alex Vesia. “He loves baseball. And when you do both, you have to love him as he does.”
