With Less on His Plate, Shohei Ohtani Is Off to Historic Start on the Mound

The talents of Shohei Ohtani are not boundless. Cut him, he bleeds. Put too much torque on his elbow ligament, it breaks. Hyperextend the labrum of his left shoulder, it tears. Ask him to be the best pitcher in the National League, with command of his seven pitches like never before, his hitting suffers.

So it was that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saw a boundary line Monday night in Houston after Ohtani extended his hitless streak to 17 at-bats while grounding out twice to third base, something that he had done in a game only three times in his career, never since 2022. Roberts read Ohtani’s body language and decided Ohtani would get another start last night as a pitcher only, his third such lighter lift in his past four trips to the mound.

The Dodgers trust Ohtani to know himself and his capacity to work. He is fiercely disciplined with how he trains. But the club has a say, too, when it comes to how he expends his massive but not unlimited energy reserve. In this case, it saw his industry in his pitching (an average of 95 pitches per start entering an 89-pitch effort last night) affecting his hitting, including how much grinding he could devote to working his way out of a rut.

“I think so,” says a team source. “But [we’re] just trying to respect the amount of effort he expends in his current role. To find a spot here and there to give him a slight breather seems like a smart thing to do from a longevity standpoint.”

There is no specific plan that’s been mapped out as to how often Ohtani does not bat when he pitches. When he’s not swinging it well, such as the past week, it’s easier to keep him out of the lineup for one of these “breathers.” Expect more.

At this rate, he could get about 75 fewer plate appearances this year than he did last year, which will cost five or six home runs. It’s worth losing those plate appearances and a handful of homers to a) keep him fresh and b) keep getting the best out of him as a pitcher. This full-go 2026 pitching version of Ohtani is the best we’ve seen from him.

Focused only on pitching last night in Houston, Ohtani threw another gem, though he lost, 2-1, on two solo homers, the first home runs he has allowed this year. A dart-thrower except for missing on the wrong side of the plate with a fastball to Christian Walker, who ambushed it for a homer, Ohtani threw 70% strikes with no walks and eight strikeouts over seven innings.

Ohtani is at heart a two-way player nearly as much as he breathes. It is who he is as a ballplayer. So, it wasn’t surprising that after the outing he told reporters, “I don’t think so, personally, that pitching has been affecting my hitting. But I understand, in a situation where [the team says], ‘Hey, just focus on pitching, turn the page on hitting,’ I understand the team might think like that.”

As he continues to become more of a groundball pitcher that depresses slug, he obtained seven outs on groundballs and only two on flyballs. He is off to an historic start on the mound.

Ohtani is only the 14th pitcher since 1920 to start a season with an ERA under one (0.97) through six starts with at least 42 strikeouts. Fernando Valenzuela (1981 and 1985) is the only other Dodger to do so. Ohtani’s nine walks in those six starts are fewer than all in the group except Jacob deGrom (2021), Zack Greinke (2009) and Roger Clemens (1991).

He is 6-for-6 in quality starts. He is holding hitters to a .160 batting average, a career low.

Mind you, this is ace level stuff from a leadoff hitter with a 131 OPS+. Never stop being amazed. Look past 0-for-17 and remind yourself that the NL Pitcher of the Month for April also in his day job slammed six homers and posted a .406 OBP and .491 slug that month. Crazy.

Most impressively, Ohtani the pitcher is better than ever despite slight dips in his fastball velocity and strikeout rate (though they are still elite). And here’s why: He has never been better at commanding the baseball. Ohtani is cruising at career bests in terms of hitting the edges of the plate (43.8%), getting hitters to chase (31.1%), getting the ball on the ground (55.4%) and depressing slug (.260).

His fastball command especially has improved, boosting his four-seam value to a career-high 98th percentile. It’s a typical arc for players who have undergone elbow procedures, only at an elite level. Year 1: velocity bounces back, maybe better than ever. Year 2: the command kicks in. He has increased his pitches on the edges by 5.4%, the second-best improvement among starters, behind only Jacob Lopez of the Athletics.

Here is a good visual of how Ohtani has moved his four-seam fastball to the edges, especially to glove side. These are his fastball heat maps from 2022, when he posted the biggest two-way workload of his career (166 innings and 666 plate appearances, a template for this year), and these past two seasons (with a like number of fastballs, 292 and 250). He is moving the ball out of the middle and to the edge.

Shohei Ohtani's pitch maps from 2022 and 2025 | Sports Illustrated

This is more than a one-year improvement. Since his last elbow procedure in September of 2023, Ohtani has worked hard to constantly refine his mechanics to create a more efficient, less stressful delivery. The biggest change was adopting a full windup with a step-back last year, rather than pitching exclusively from the stretch.

But there’s more. As you can see in these pictures from 2021 and 2026, he created a smoother arm swing (he used to pick the ball up early by bending and lifting the elbow) and more of a drop-and-drive delivery (less upright) that fires his legs more:

He is using his body more dynamically to reduce stress on his arm, including when he gets to ball release with a lower arm angle.

The guy who hits leadoff for the Dodgers could win the Cy Young Award, even if the Dodgers are conservative with his workload. Corbin Burnes won a Cy with 167 innings. Ohtani should be right around that number.

And yes, Ohtani would love to win a Cy Young Award. He wants to be the best player on the planet, and the Cy is a validation of reaching the pinnacle of pitching. As much as our jaws dropped watching him at the plate go 50-50, or 6-for-6, or over the Dodger Stadium pavilion in a three-homer playoff game, we must remember that Ohtani’s first love was pitching. As a high schooler, he wrote down his year-by-year life and baseball goals. None of them mentioned hitting. It is remarkable how Ohtani has hit many of those goals. Here is a sample of some of the ones he has reached or remain:

Age 18 Join an MLB team ✅

Age 21 Make starting rotation, win 16 games

Age 22 Win Cy Young Award

Age 24 Throw a no-hitter, win 25 games

Age 25 Throw world’s fastest pitch, 108 mph

Age 26 Get married ✅

Age 26 Win World Series ✅

Age 27 Member of Japan WBC team & MVP ✅

Age 31 First daughter is born ✅

Age 32 Win second World Series ✅

Age 34 Win third World Series

Age 40 Throw no-hitter in very last game

Yes, winning a Cy Young is on his baseball bucket list. It looks increasingly possible. Ohtani has become so good as a pitcher that there will be more nights when Roberts gives him a break from hitting when he is on the mound. And when it does happen, it should be viewed less as respite from a slump and more as exploring just how far the boundary is for this best pitching version of Shohei.

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