That was the first word that came to mind for Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing on Tuesday, when asked to describe how Shohei Ohtani’s first live pitching session of the spring looked from behind the plate.
“He was locating all his pitches, getting the misses that he wanted,” Rushing said. “Yeah, he looked really, really good today.”
When it comes to Ohtani, that has been the common refrain aroundDodgers campin the early days of spring training.
For his time since signing with the team three years ago, the two-way star is coming off a fully healthy offseason, unencumbered by the Tommy John surgery he had at the end of 2023 and the labrum repair he underwent after 2024.
Also for his first time as a Dodger, Ohtani enters this season preparing to play both ways on a full-time basis, setting his sights on not only a fifth career MVP award butalso contention for Cy Young honors(something never before won by a Japanese player).
“He seems like he’s on a mission, pitching-wise,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said later Tuesday afternoon. “And whenever we’ve seen him on a mission, good things happen.”
Indeed, there seems to be little question this year about whether Ohtani can re-emerge as one of the top pitchers in the sport –– a status he earned by posting a 2.84 ERA over three seasons with the Angels from 2021-2023, then a 2.87 mark in 14 workload-restricted outings in his return from Tommy John with the Dodgers last season.
But, there are still uncertainties over how aggressively the Dodgers will utilize him in 2026, with the club trying to strike a delicate balance between his dueling (and potentially draining) roles on the mound and at the plate.
“Obviously, last year, he was coming back from surgery, and so we were very deliberate about a lot of things,” Friedman said. “This year we will be less so, but still mindful of it.”
This week, the challenges of that process have begun to come into focus.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
