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Shohei Ohtani has taken a significant step forward in his journey back to the Dodgers’ pitching rotation, per Jack Harris at the New York Post. The two-way superstar’s rehab process — which the team previously announced would include rehab starts in major-league games rather than minor-league outings — appears to be progressing on schedule, with Ohtani reaching a new milestone as he works toward a full return to the mound.

Ohtani’s path back to pitching has been one of the most closely watched storylines in baseball. The 2023 free-agent megasigning — a 10-year, $700 million deal that remains the largest in professional sports history — was always built around the premise of eventually getting him back on the mound after his second UCL surgery. He’s been devastating as a hitter, of course, putting up numbers that would make him an MVP candidate even without the pitching component. But the Dodgers didn’t commit that kind of money just for a designated hitter. The pitching side is what separates Ohtani from everyone else who has ever played this game, and getting him back on the mound in competitive, high-leverage situations has been the plan all along.

The decision to have Ohtani make his rehab appearances in actual MLB games rather than sending him to the minors was notable. It signaled the organization’s confidence in where he is physically and mechanistically. Minor-league rehab starts are typically the safer, more cautious route — you control the environment, you limit the pressure. The Dodgers clearly felt Ohtani was past that point. He’s a veteran who has pitched in World Series games and in the most pressure-packed environments in international baseball. Facing big-league hitters in a controlled workload is, in the team’s estimation, a better test of where he actually stands.

For us as Dodgers fans, this is the development we’ve been waiting on since the day he signed. The lineup is already one of the best in baseball. Adding a frontline starter — and I mean a legitimate ace, a guy who was posting sub-3.00 ERAs in the American League before the surgery — to a rotation that already features quality arms changes the calculus entirely for October. This isn’t about regular-season wins in August. It’s about what the pitching staff looks like when the games really matter.

The timing matters too. We’re past the trade deadline, the roster is largely set, and the focus now shifts to getting everyone healthy and in rhythm for the stretch run. Ohtani’s progression is the single biggest variable in how this team’s ceiling shakes out. If he can build up to even four or five innings of quality stuff by late September, the Dodgers’ postseason rotation goes from very good to genuinely terrifying. I’ll keep tracking each step of this closely — every bullpen session, every rehab outing, every update on velocity and pitch mix. This is the story of the second half for this team, full stop.

Source(s): Jack Harris (New York Post) | First reported: August 15, 2026 2:14 AM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers