Let us approach Shohei Ohtani as naively as possible, while admitting that in the case of Ohtani this decision can hardly be anything but a ruse. For the span of time that he has been on the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani has been a designated hitter, and a very good one: He won the MVP last year in spite of being a designated hitter, and this year has been, depending on how you count, either the second- or third-best offensive player in MLB. The best is Aaron Judge, who is doing Aaron Judge things; the other second- or third-best player is, naturally, Ohtani's teammate Freddie Freeman; Ohtani currently has both of them, as well as every other player in MLB, beat on home run tally.
Here is what that looks like over the course of a long weekend. The Dodgers came into it in a bit of a mire: a four-game loss streak, followed by a three-game win streak, followed in turn by another loss. Then their designated hitter opened up the final game of their series against the New York Mets by doing this:
Yes, that was a no-doubter, second-deck home run that went over 400 feet, but it took Ohtani two whole pitches to get there. The very next day, Ohtani decided to improve upon his previous work with this, against the Cleveland Guardians:
No sooner had the play-by-play guy gotten through his note about how Ohtani is tied for the National League lead in homers with 18 than Ohtani put the first pitch of the game into the stands for his league-leading 19th. Of all the compliments that can be given to Ohtani's lead-off hitting this weekend, the best is that it is Kyle Schwarber–esque. The caveat to that compliment is that Ohtani is what you would get if Kyle Schwarber had wheels, along with various other assets.
An entirely unrelated topic: The high-upside, injury-prone pitching rotation that the Dodgers built has been dogged by an unsurprising plethora of injuries. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been a Cy Young–caliber pitcher so far this season, and, in the same game Ohtani hit that first-pitch homer, proved himself to be a real athlete. Outside of Yamamoto, L.A.'s rotation has been in shambles. New star rookie Roki Sasaki? Injured. Tyler Glasnow? Injured. Blake Snell? You bet he's injured. This is the natural justification for the Dodgers' greedy, greedy offseason, but even their in-built redundancy has faltered: Landon Knack is out there with a damn 5.25 ERA. Even PECOTA has temporarily ceded the dream of a 100-win season for a more mundane prediction of 99.4.
It is clear that the Dodgers are pressing the panic button. How else would you justify making your MVP-winning designated hitter, who also happens to be the current MLB home run leader, throw to hitters, seemingly in preparation for becoming a starter? Who do they think this guy is, Babe Ruth? As if! Let's see what he's got in the cooker, if he has anything at all:
Ah. Seeing that Wii Sports screwball at the 10-second mark has jogged my memory: On top of being a very good hitter, Shohei Ohtani is also a very good pitcher. I will respond to this news of Ohtani's steady progress back toward pitching very patiently, and not like a feral desert lizard in search of water.
