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Shohei Ohtani‘s return to the Dodgers rotation is imminent, and the focus has shifted from whether he’ll pitch again this season to how the team plans to handle him once he does, per Fabian Ardaya at The New York Times. After completing a live batting practice session that drew overwhelmingly positive reviews, the next step is getting Ohtani into game action — and managing his workload carefully as we push toward October.

Ohtani hasn’t pitched in a major league game since the 2023 season, when he was still with the Angels. The torn UCL that ended his pitching that year led to surgery and a lengthy rehab process that the Dodgers always planned to extend through the first half of the 2026 season. He signed his historic 10-year, $700 million deal with Los Angeles knowing the pitching component would be delayed, and the organization has been meticulous about every step of his throwing progression. The live BP session was the final hurdle before facing hitters in a game setting, and by all accounts he cleared it convincingly. His fastball velocity looked sharp, his splitter was diving, and the command was ahead of where most people expected at this stage.

The management question is the real story now. The Dodgers have to balance Ohtani’s readiness against the reality that he’s a pitcher who hasn’t logged competitive innings in nearly three years. You don’t just slot a guy back into a five-man rotation and let him throw 100 pitches. I’d expect something resembling what we saw with other high-profile pitching returns — a pitch count that starts in the 60-75 range and builds gradually, with the Dodgers potentially using an opener or piggyback arrangement in his early starts. The timeline also matters enormously for October. If Ohtani makes his first start in late August or early September, the Dodgers have roughly five or six turns through the rotation to build him up before the postseason begins.

There’s also the question of how Ohtani’s return reshapes the rotation around him. Tarik Skubal has been the ace all season and that won’t change. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been excellent. Tyler Glasnow is set to return to the rotation Tuesday after his own injury absence. Roki Sasaki is in the mix. Blake Snell and Eric Lauer have been filling innings. That’s a lot of arms, and adding Ohtani to the equation means someone gets bumped — likely to the bullpen or to a reduced role. Justin Wrobleski already moved to the pen recently, and the Dodgers have shown they’re willing to be creative with how they deploy their pitching depth.

For us, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for since Ohtani signed. The bat has been spectacular — he’s been one of the best hitters in baseball even without pitching. But the whole promise of the Ohtani experience was always about the two-way dominance, and we’re about to see it in Dodger Blue for the first time. The Dodgers clearly aren’t going to rush anything. They’ve been patient for three years and they’re not about to blow it now with a postseason run on the line. But make no mistake — once Ohtani is stretched out and fully built up, this rotation has a chance to be historically deep come October. The management plan between now and then is everything.

Source(s): Fabian Ardaya (The New York Times) | First reported: August 23, 2026 8:38 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers