After a relatively brief rehab assignment, Emmet Sheehan impressed in his 2025 debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers but was optioned back to Triple-A Oklahoma City the following day.
The decision was made to put the Dodgers in a better position for their road series against the Colorado Rockies and to allow the right-hander to build up more naturally after completing four innings on 65 pitches in his first start.
“Had some stuff to work on, so I got to do that down there, which was nice,” Sheehan said this week. “Feel like I’m in a pretty good spot, for sure.”
Sheehan performed well once again in his second start for the Dodgers, holding the Houston Astros to one run while striking out four over five innings.
“He threw the baseball really well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Roberts added Sheehan is going to remain in the Dodgers’ rotation moving forward. He was lined up to start Saturday against the San Francisco Giants, but the Dodgers instead are going to have Sheehan pitch out of the bullpen in a bulk role to follow Shohei Ohtani.
Nonetheless, having Sheehan back in the fold provides a boost to a Dodgers rotation that has needed quality arms for a majority of the season. Their starters rank in the bottom 10 in terms of ERA and are last in innings pitched.
Sheehan gives the Dodgers a full complement of options in their rotation, which has allowed them to move Ben Casparius back to the bullpen where he has been most effective.
“It’s a great problem, and I think that he’s earning it,” Roberts said of Sheehan. “But the thing is that we have other guys that are giving themselves more runways and opportunities, so that’s a good thing for us.
“And I guess the good thing is that if guys start to come back to health, then we’ve got some tougher decisions to make. But that’s obviously a good problem to have.”
Emmet Sheehan breaks down start against Astros
Establishing the fastball early in counts and mixing in his secondary pitches to put batters away was Sheehan’s plan of attack for Sunday’s outing and it worked to good effect.
“I think just getting ahead of guys,” he said. “They’re going to be aggressive, so making sure I make quality pitches early in the count. And then getting ahead and trying to put them away, which got away from a little bit towards the end, but overall, pretty good.”
Coming off Tommy John surgery, the way Sheehan’s stuff has looked against Major League hitters has been particularly noteworthy.
“Yeah, it’s nice. It’s good to get the results,” he said. “But I think just making sure I’m ahead in the counts and not losing guys, walks are probably the big thing right now, limiting that, and overall, pretty good.”
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