Shohei Ohtani’s path back to the mound has hit another pause.
The Los Angeles Dodgers were hoping Sunday might bring a return, but Ohtani will not pitch against the Detroit Tigers in the series finale at Comerica Park. Tyler Glasnow gets the start instead, while Ohtani continues working through lingering left knee and right bicep issues.
That decision came after what looked like a meaningful step forward. Ohtani threw live batting practice to Will Smith last weekend, then followed it with a bullpen session before the opener against Detroit. Even so, the workload was lighter than usual, with an estimated 20 pitches in the bullpen.
“I think that just in total, Sho hasn’t come out of it well,” manager Dave Roberts said on SportsNet LA after the Dodgers’ 2-1 walk-off loss to the Tigers. “The arm, the knee.
If any pitcher was feeling like this, we wouldn’t run him out there. So that’s where we’re at.”
Roberts didn’t offer a firm timeline for Ohtani’s next start, but he also didn’t close the door on him returning later this season.
“I don’t think we’ve made that decision yet,” Roberts said when asked if Ohtani will be shut down again. “For us, take [Sunday] off the table, let’s get back to L.A., let’s kind of figure out where his body is at and then go from there.”
The Dodgers manager framed the situation less as a fresh setback and more as a sign that Ohtani still isn’t all the way back.
“You know, I don’t even know if it’s a setback in the sense that it hasn’t been 100%,” Roberts began. “So you’re hoping that each day it gets a little bit better and closer, and once we have to make a decision, it just is not there. So I wouldn’t even classify it as a setback.”
Ohtani hasn’t pitched in a game since he worked six innings and threw a season-high 110 pitches against the San Diego Padres on July 3. His next scheduled start was scratched, and continued trouble with his left knee eventually led to him being removed from the rotation indefinitely.
During the All-Star break, Ohtani received an Orthovisc injection and was shut down from throwing for several weeks. He later had a small setback after a bullpen session at Citizens Bank Park and didn’t resume playing catch on the field until more than two weeks after that.
The right bicep has also remained part of the picture. Ohtani said at the end of July that it was not 100%, and he has felt discomfort there on multiple occasions this season, though Roberts had previously minimized how serious it was.
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