SAN ANTONIO — For those who’re shopping for tickets to the Dodgers’ season-opening video games in Tokyo subsequent March, don’t rely on seeing Shohei Ohtani pitch.
Although the Dodgers’ slugger is predicted to be within the lineup for the beginning of the workforce’s 2025 season — which is able to kick off with two video games in Japan towards the Chicago Cubs on the Tokyo Dome — the two-way star was already unsure to return to the mound by then after his Tommy John revision surgical procedure final 12 months.
Ohtani’s shoulder process, thankfully, was to his non-throwing arm, and isn’t anticipated to have any “big-picture” affect on his capability to pitch subsequent 12 months, in line with basic supervisor Brandon Gomes.
However it can add one other complication to the 30-year-old’s offseason throwing program — and can in all probability push again his timeline to affix the Dodgers’ beginning rotation subsequent season.
“We’ll see how he gets through this phase and then take it each step by step, because it’s complicated with somebody who’s also hitting,” Gomes mentioned Wednesday at Main League Baseball’s basic managers conferences. “So we’re just gonna make sure we’re checking every box to make sure he’s in the best possible position health-wise. And then whatever falls out of that smart, methodical process will be what it is.”
Ohtani’s possibilities of being within the Dodgers’ opening-day rotation have been first narrowed throughout the playoffs, when he and the workforce determined to delay the completion of his pitching rehab till after the postseason.
Getting into October, Ohtani was almost able to face hitters for the primary time since his September 2023 elbow surgical procedure. By that time, he’d progressed sufficient in his regular-season throwing program to be throwing bullpen periods commonly.
However cautious of overtaxing Ohtani throughout his first MLB postseason, he and the workforce elected to attend till the winter to have him face hitters once more. And now, his labrum surgical procedure restoration has thrown one other wrinkle into these plans.
“I think we’re going to take it piece by piece and get through this … and not say, ‘Hey, we need to be ready by this day,’” mentioned Gomes, who stopped in need of ruling Ohtani out from pitching by opening day however didn’t solid an optimistic image of that risk. “We’re going to let the rehab process play out.”
The specifics of Ohtani’s restoration course of aren’t clear. However in an interview with The Occasions on Wednesday, orthopedic surgeon Paul Rothenberg, director of sports activities drugs and shoulder surgical procedure at Optum Orthopedic Institute, provided perception into the usual rehab for many labrum surgical procedures.
First, sufferers undergo a interval of “immobilization” of roughly 4 weeks, Rothenberg mentioned, throughout which era the shoulder needs to be subjected to solely “very controlled movement” and is commonly stored cradled in a sling.
“Early recovery is just kind of maintaining the range of motion, dealing with the inflammation, dealing with the pain, and doing it in a controlled, very specific fashion,” Rothenberg mentioned, noting he advises his sufferers towards even working throughout that stage of restoration. “So that you’re not putting undue stress on the surgery that you just performed.”
After that, the rehab focuses on permitting the athlete to regain full vary of movement within the shoulder freely. On the 10-12 week mark, they’ll start strengthening that a part of the physique once more.
Rothenberg described Ohtani’s case particularly as a “decent situation” for the reason that damage wasn’t to his throwing arm. Had he harm his proper shoulder, he won’t have been in a position to throw once more for 4 to 6 months.
“[That] would have been really bad,” Rothenberg mentioned, “considering he’s already had elbow surgery.”
Given the necessity to defend the shoulder early within the restoration course of, the workforce’s unique pitching plan for Ohtani this offseason nonetheless “will look a little bit different now,” Gomes acknowledged.
“But,” Gomes added, “the positive thing is that, as far as big picture, no real concern on that end.”
A delayed begin to Ohtani’s 2025 season as a pitcher won’t have main long-term prices, both.
Coming off his elbow surgical procedure, the possible soon-to-be three-time MVP was in all probability going to be on a restricted workload subsequent 12 months anyway. Although Gomes didn’t specify any laborious innings restrict Wednesday, he famous that the membership’s foremost focus is on having Ohtani “at his peak come the biggest games of the year” subsequent October.
Within the interim, the Dodgers’ hope is that Ohtani received’t be compromised on the plate, for the reason that damage, which Ohtani suffered after jamming his arm into the bottom on a slide into second base throughout the World Sequence, occurred to the again shoulder in his swing.
“It’s just far less of a concern of how violent any of that would be as opposed to if it were the other [shoulder],” Gomes mentioned.
Rothenberg agreed.
“For him, [it’s good] it’s the top hand, and not the one where in the follow-through of the swing you can sometimes fling the bat over your shoulder, because that would be the one motion where it would potentially irritate a torn anterior labrum, just that motion,” Rothenberg mentioned. “For me, the fact that he’s a lefty batter, and it’s his left arm, the range of motion required to perform that motion, he should have it. And he should have it without any significant due stress on what was done. So in my opinion, I think he should be OK.”
The Dodgers are aware of the counter-example.
Within the 2020 postseason, former outfielder Cody Bellinger suffered an analogous shoulder dislocation and labrum tear to his lead proper shoulder, and underwent surgical procedure the next offseason.
Bellinger was within the workforce’s opening-day lineup the following 12 months, however struggled mightily by the 2021 and 2022 seasons, a interval throughout which his agent, Scott Boras, mentioned the previous MVP winner was taking part in with “a 35% strength deficiency.”
“These guys are Ferraris,” Rothenberg mentioned. “If you’re a little bit off, it makes a difference.”
The Dodgers, nonetheless, are hopeful Ohtani received’t endure any such regression, and that the affect of his labrum surgical procedure will solely be minimal.
“He had his surgery, and his prognosis is really good,” Gomes mentioned. “We expect him to be ready for spring training.”
As a hitter, a minimum of.
