MINNEAPOLIS — Shohei Ohtani has been through this before so he knows there is little excitement in the early stages of a throwing program.
“It’s been going according to plan,” Ohtani said through his interpreter on Monday.
Six-and-a-half months out from his second elbow-reconstruction surgery, Ohtani is two weeks into the start of his throwing program. At this point, that means playing catch from 60 feet or closer for a limited number of throws.
“Just stretching out a little bit, increasing the intensity a little bit,” Ohtani said. “It’s been going pretty well.”
Unlike his time as a two-way player, Ohtani’s throwing program has virtually no impact on the time he’s able to devote to preparing for games as a hitter at this point. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t see that changing any time soon.
“As far as him progressing, the main thing is for us to feel he’s ready to pitch in ’25,” Roberts said. “Nothing that we do should impact that going forward.”
Without the drain of pitching, Roberts expects to write Ohtani’s name in at DH every game with no plans for off days unless things change. The Dodgers have four off days in the first three weeks of April and won’t play more than seven consecutive days until a road trip to Washington, Toronto and Arizona at the end of this month.
“I think that, where we’re at, the two games that we had in Korea, lends itself to more off days once we started here stateside,” he said. “If I start to see or hear or talk to Shohei and he says he might need a day off, we’ll have that conversation. Right now, with the off days I don’t see it coming in awhile.”
It figures to be a long while before the Dodgers have any conversations with Ohtani about playing in the field. During spring training, Roberts raised that as a possibility when Ohtani has progressed far enough in his throwing program. But Roberts was dismissive of the idea this week.
“This year, I just don’t see how he’s not going to be a DH,” he said. “He’s building up with his throwing program. If there’s a conversation in September to run him out there to spell somebody else, a day of defense, we can have that conversation. But we’re not even close to that.
“Status quo is fine. If it changes in September, then we’ll have a discussion.”
SECOND HALF
The Dodgers’ early start in South Korea skews the numbers. But the sixth through ninth spots in their batting order combined to strike out 65 times in their first 13 games. The individual totals in the sixth and eighth spots rank first in MLB. Their seventh-spot hitters are second.
Individually, Teoscar Hernandez (who typically bats sixth) and Max Muncy rank first and second in MLB in strikeouts. James Outman (15 strikeouts in his first 37 at-bats) and Chris Taylor (10 in his first 22) have added to the strikeout-heavy bottom half of the Dodgers’ lineup.
For most of those hitters, this is not surprising. Taylor led the National League in strikeouts in 2018 (with 178) and has struck out at least 160 times in two of the previous three seasons. Hernandez was second in the American League with 211 strikeouts last season. Outman was fourth in the National League with 181 strikeouts as a rookie last year.
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But Roberts said he doesn’t want to view past performance as inevitably predictive of future results.
“I don’t feel good about conceding the fact that they’re just going to go up there and swing and miss, certain guys,” he said. “I do think that there’s a role that everyone has in the order and (you should) work to get better at it. Yeah, CT’s got swing-and-miss in his swing but I still think he can get better and I think the same thing with James.
“Hitting is hard. I do just want to see good at-bats.”
ALSO
Right-hander Dinelson Lamet has cleared waivers and rejoined Triple-A Oklahoma City. Lamet was designated for assignment by the Dodgers over the weekend.
UP NEXT
Dodgers (RHP Bobby Miller, 1-1, 5.87 ERA) at Twins (RHP Chris Paddack, 0-0, 4.50 ERA), Wednesday, 10:10 a.m. PT, SportsNet LA, MLB Network, 570 AM
