At some point this season, Shohei Ohtani pitching and hitting will once again become ordinary, and only when he does something truly extraordinary will it be worth writing about. We are not yet at that point in the season. The Ohtani coverage will continue until the pitch count improves. It speaks to the absurd density of what has changed about Shohei Ohtani that this is the situation of his first start in nearly two years: He threw his first 28 pitches in a Dodgers uniform on the same day that his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, reported to federal prison.
I would like to hype up the outing with more than that. Ohtani's return to the mound is not a novelty, as some might have feared after he left the Los Angeles Angels—for any criticism allotted to the Angels, you have to admit that they were in a position to let Ohtani do whatever he wanted. As previously noted, the Dodgers desperately need starting pitching. And so they had to take the option of a glorified rehab start, considering the minor league dilemma: As pitcher Ohtani and hitter Ohtani are the same person (allegedly; I have only seen one of him at any given time), his rehab start necessarily had to take place against the San Diego Padres as opposed to, say, the Round Rock Express. It was arguably overshadowed by Dylan Cease hitting Andy Pages with a fastball, and Padres manager Mike Shildt shouting, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" after Pages expressed some displeasure at taking 98 miles-per-hour to the arm. In otherwise, average Dodgers–Padres June game shenanigans.
The Ohtani start lived up to more realistic expectations. As is natural from a pitcher who hasn't faced game action in 22 months, his command was sketchy. He threw 28 pitches over the course of an inning, and didn't lodge a single strikeout. He gave up an earned run, ballooning his ERA to 9.00 this season. He only threw one splitter.
But! But but but! All the stuff was there. Ohtani touched 100 miles per hour on his fastball—no debut Jacob Misiorowski, sure, but also no slouch. He appeared to have ditched the cutter in favor of a sinker he threw a quarter of the time, especially to right-handed hitters in Fernando Tatís Jr. and Xander Bogaerts. How often was 2021–23 Ohtani throwing a sinker? Less than seven percent of the time! It is gross and unfair that Ohtani should still be permitted to evolve as a player.
Most importantly, his start allowed for the return of a classic sentence construction: Shohei Ohtani made up for allowing a run in the first inning by hitting a game-tying one-run double in the third. Ah, that feels nice to read. Something just clicked into place in the world again.
