The Dodgers very much needed Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s seven scoreless innings on Tuesday night, the salve to calm a recent string of subpar starts and subsequent extra taxing of a tired and depleted relief corps.
The sobering part of the team’s current situation is that there aren’t many in-house pitching options on the radar to augment the current staff. Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell are throwing, but each would need rehab starts before returning, a process that will take weeks, not days, to complete.
Michael Kopech is the closest reliever to return, though he’s allowed runs in three of his four rehab appearances for Triple-A Oklahoma City, including two runs in a two-out outing on Tuesday night. With a schedule that will remain unforgiving for at least three more weeks, with 19 games in 20 days beginning Friday, the Dodgers’ pitching staff for the most part is what it is for the foreseeable future.
Further down the road, in addition to Glasnow and Snell, there will be a point when Shohei Ohtani resumes his two-way duties by returning to the mound. His rehab, returning from September 2023 Tommy John surgery, has been methodical, keeping on schedule with a weekly bullpen session every Saturday but one since March 29. This last Saturday, Ohtani ramped things up with 50 pitches, stretched over two simulated innings, his longest such bullpen session to date.
On Tuesday, during a side session, Ohtani added a new wrinkle. From Jack Harris at the Los Angeles Times:
In a flat-ground throwing session Tuesday afternoon, Ohtani mixed in some breaking pitches for the first time in his throwing program this year, Roberts said, a notable development after the right-hander had been limited to fastball and splitters previously in pitching activities.
Unlike Glasnow and Snell, who are on the injured list and will pitch on an actual rehab assingment before returning, Ohtani cannot pitch in minor league games. His rehab starts will be of the simulated variety, in the hours before games. But at some point, the current major league leader in home runs and runs scored will make his Dodgers mound debut in a game.
So let’s recalibrate our expectations, repeating an exercise we did back in February. Today’s question is when will Shohei Ohtani make his Dodgers pitching debut?
