Shohei Ohtani will not pitch on Friday as originally expected after he experienced arm soreness this week, Angels manager Joe Maddon said, and there’s no guarantee he will start on the mound again before the season ends.
Ohtani had been “penciled” in to start Friday’s series-opener against the Oakland A’s, but then felt soreness after playing catch on Wednesday, according to Maddon.
It’s unclear what will come next for Ohtani. Maddon said the team isn’t shutting him down yet, and that they’re hopeful he could just be battling normal late-season fatigue. They’re planning to have him play catch again in the next few days and see how he feels.
As of Thursday morning, there was no plan to have him see a doctor.
“If he feels great, adamantly, I see nothing wrong with [him pitching again],” Maddon said. “But if there’s any kind of lingering soreness, you may not see him pitch. I just don’t know that answer yet.”
Maddon said he did ask Ohtani about potentially shutting down for the rest of the season, either as a pitcher or a hitter, where he has slumped with a .147 batting average over the last 20 games.
However, “he felt he’s still good and he still wants to get after it,” Maddon said. “But I did broach the subject with him.”
While Ohtani has previously missed pitching starts this year because blisters on his fingers and soreness around his hand and wrist area after being struck by balls, this is the first case of the team saying he has any sort of arm issue.
In 2018, Ohtani underwent Tommy John surgery after making 10 pitching starts in his first MLB season. He didn’t pitch at all in 2019 — a season that ended early for him at the plate because of a knee surgery — then managed just two outings in a short-lived return to the mound in 2020 before being shut down as a pitcher because of a right forearm injury.
This year, however, Ohtani became the best pitcher in the Angels' rotation, dominating with a fastball that occasionally reached 100 mph, an assortment of off-speed and breaking pitches, and consistent command that continued to improve over the course of the year.
In 21 starts, he has a 3.36 ERA, 136 strikeouts and a 9-2 record.
Maddon mentioned on Thursday that getting to 10 wins is probably a personal goal for Ohtani down the stretch, but that “we can’t permit that to be the driving factor.”
“We’re just gonna let it play itself out right now,” Maddon added. “He’ll continue to do his thing, playing catch or whatever. And then we’ll determine if he feels good enough to [make a pitching start] again. I think he can. But we’ve been caught in these circumstances a lot this year, so just have to wait and see.”
