Why the Dodgers aren’t rushing Shohei Ohtani’s pitching build-up yet

For so long, the biggest question surrounding the future of Shohei Ohtani as a launcher was simple.

When, after a second Tommy John surgery in career, would it come back to the mound? When, after a year and a half of strike exclusively, could it resume double-meaning tasks?

Last week, this answer finally arrived.

Twice in seven days, Ohtani has climbed the bump while the starter of the dodgers, launching a round at each exhained return to pitch.

The twice, he left his teammates and coaches in an astonished astonishment, giving them their first overview of his double role skills.

“I saw [him throw] The enclosures and simulated lives and games, or anything, “said manager Dave Roberts on Sunday.” But to look at him in real time, to go from the mound to the circle on the deck and then go to the shot box, it’s quite remarkable. And he just manages it in the right direction. He is simply imperb.

What comes then, however, remains wrapped in a certain uncertainty.

Now that Ohtani again poses in a live action, new questions persist in the place where its accumulation will go from here.

“It will be a progressive process,” said Ohtani through Will Ireton on Sunday. “I want to see improvements with the quality of the locations I launch, then increase the amount of land. So it’s going to be progressive. “

It is not surprising that, in Ohtani’s return to pitch on June 16, it was limited to a single round. It was a compromise that he and the team made to bring him back in a real match earlier, agreeing to give him a live departure even if they knew that it would not extend after a round.

By entering the second departure of Ohtani on Sunday afternoon, however, the thought was that the right -hander could be ready to push in the second – that, to possibly stretch for full departures, he would begin to build his workload by adding another round each time.

The way Ohtani launched on Sunday certainly justified a second round.

After abandoning two strokes and a race on an exit of 28 pass against the Padres of San Diego six days earlier, he recovered two sticks to the stick in an non -goal round of 18 strokes against the Nationals of Washington, his only Baserunner reaching a pop fly down by Mookie Betts.

“Overall, I was able to relax much better compared to my last outing,” said Ohtani. “The way my body moves when I pitch is something on which I worked with pitch coaches and I felt much better this time.”

However, at the top of the second, Ohtani was again replaced on the rubber. Despite its improved execution and efficiency, it turned out that he and the team had made a predetermined decision not to push him for a second round yet.

“It was the original plan,” said Ohtani about dismissal after the first.

“Entering today’s game,” added Roberts, “we really felt comfortable with one.”

He hammered the reality of what awaits us for Ohtani; The prudence, methodical and, as Roberts has also described, the “progressive” rhythm with which the team will manage its tension workload for the moment.

“I think it’s more to try to get the foundation, the constituent elements as it is [pitching and] Take bats, ”said Roberts.”[We are] Certainly on the side of prudence … there is no sense to rush it at the moment. »»

While Ohtani returns to pitch, there are new factors that dodgers will have to monitor in its versatile performance.

Already, the reigning MVP has reduced its basic flight while accelerating like a launcher: after having slipped 11 bags in his first 50 games, he did not even try to fly since he launched his first training session in the stick live on May 25.

His place in the head point could be changed on the days where he also launches, Roberts leaving the possibility of moving him in the order of the strikers to give him more time to spend from the launcher to the striker (at least in the first round of the home games, when he must currently bend from the mound to the plate after the first round of the frame).

Then there may be the biggest question: if the burden of pitch will affect the very important production of Ohtani with the bat?

This dynamic was examined this week, after Ohtani did not go two for 19 in the five games after his first start of the launcher.

“I don’t think it’s a fatigue thing,” said Roberts on Sunday morning. “But we will manage it. I can only take it at his word, and the speed of swing and all that we have in a way is always online.”

Ohtani broke this collapse after its round on the mound on Sunday, ending the day with a triple of three points during the seventh and two points of home traffic in the eighth.

“I feel like I have to work on certain things,” said Ohtani. “But at the same time, I feel like I can perform better, even better than I could play.”

All this is to say that, while Ohtani has mastered its role in double sense before (MVP of the American League winning twice while doing it with the Angels), the Dodgers take nothing for acquired on its return from pitching at the moment.

Before starting to add to his pitching workload, they want to make sure they have taken into account the involuntary side effects.

“All these conversations we have with him, of course,” said Roberts. “He understands where he is, where we are and enjoying the fact that over time, we will go to a certain point.”

Before Sunday’s match, Roberts did not even commit to completely stretching Ohtani as a traditional starter in the second half of the season.

“It’s a bit TBD,” he said when he was asked when Ohtani could be fully built for departures of normal length. “I think we are always going to be careful. So I don’t even know what it will look like, to be “completely built”. I don’t think anyone know what it looks like. [innings] and 90 [pitches]I don’t even know if we will come to this point.

Could this mean using Ohtani as only an glorified opener for the rest of this season? Or stretch it only if a rotation currently in digital disadvantage is not ultimately in good health?

Time will have to tell these questions, neither the dodgers nor ohtani ready to engage in the answers until they see how he continues to respond to his return to dual sense functions.

“While we build more foundations, there will be a certain latitude,” said Roberts. “I think we always meet [information]. But again, once we increase more, it could be a different conversation. »»