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Shohei Ohtani has hit a setback in his return to pitching. The Dodgers star opted out of a tentatively scheduled bullpen throwing session on Friday, continuing to experience discomfort in his left knee, per the LA Times. This is a meaningful step backward from where things stood just days ago, when Ohtani appeared on track to ramp up his mound work.

Ohtani’s pitching timeline has been one of the most closely watched storylines in baseball this season — and really, for the past two years. He hasn’t pitched in a regular-season game since his final start with the Angels in 2023, before undergoing his second UCL surgery. The Dodgers signed him that offseason to a historic 10-year, $700 million deal with the understanding that 2025 would be a DH-only year while his elbow healed, and that 2026 would mark the full two-way return. He’s been dominant as a hitter, of course — that was never in doubt. But the pitching side is where the franchise-altering upside lives. When Ohtani is on the mound and healthy, he’s one of the most electric arms in the sport: a fastball that sits in the upper 90s, a devastating sweeper, and a splitter that makes hitters look foolish. Adding that to a rotation already featuring talent like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and (eventually) Walker Buehler would give us a pitching staff unlike anything baseball has seen in the modern era.

The left knee issue is what makes this particularly frustrating. This isn’t the surgically repaired elbow acting up — it’s a separate problem that’s been nagging him. Knee discomfort for a pitcher is never something you can just shrug off, especially for someone like Ohtani who generates so much power from his lower half. His delivery puts enormous force through his landing leg, and if that knee isn’t right, everything else is compromised. The Dodgers were clearly being cautious by making the bullpen session “tentative” in the first place, and the fact that Ohtani himself opted out suggests this isn’t just minor soreness.

We had just reported that Ohtani was set for another bullpen session as his pitching return neared, so this is a direct reversal of that momentum. Instead of building toward a rehab start and a potential mid-August or September return to the mound, we’re now back in a holding pattern. The team hasn’t announced a new timeline, and I wouldn’t expect one until the knee settles down.

Here’s the bigger picture for us: the trade deadline is days away, and this changes the calculus. If the front office was operating under the assumption that Ohtani’s arm would be available down the stretch and into October, they might have felt comfortable not overpaying for pitching reinforcements. That assumption just got shakier. Andrew Friedman and the front office now have to weigh whether this is a brief delay or something that could shelve the pitching return entirely for 2026. Either way, it puts more pressure on acquiring another arm — and rival teams already expect us “to be greedy” at the deadline. This setback might actually make us more aggressive, not less. The Dodgers can’t bank on Ohtani the pitcher right now, and planning as if he’ll be available would be reckless. We need to operate with what we have, and what we can go get.

Source(s): Staff (LA Times) | First reported: July 25, 2026 11:31 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers