Shohei Ohtani made his second start as a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday to much less fanfare and again completed a short outing.
Another notable change was Ohtani going back to using “Do or Die” by Thirty Seconds to Mars as his warmup song as a pitcher.
Ohtani threw 18 pitches, including one wild pitch, in the one inning and didn’t allow any hits. Luis García Jr. was Ohtani’s first strikeout as a Dodgers pitcher. He also got Nathaniel Lowe swinging to end the inning.
He recorded the back-to-back strikeouts after Mookie Betts dropped a pop-up behind the mound to allow the Nationals’ only baserunner in the inning. Ohtani’s velocity topped out at 98.8 mph in his only inning of work.
Shohei Ohtani is warming up to a Thirty Seconds to Mars song today. pic.twitter.com/hTUTgeTIcB
— Dodger Blue (@DodgerBlue1958) June 22, 2025
Ohtani threw 28 pitches in one inning of work against the San Diego Padres last week in his first Major League start since Aug. 23, 2023.
He touched 100 mph in the outing and presumably played a significant part in MLB.TV setting a streaming record for most-watched game since
With a smaller crowd in attendance for the rubber match between the Washington Nationals and Dodgers, smaller groups of fans recorded Ohtani as he warmed up in the outfield and the bullpen. In some sense, that was expected for manager Dave Roberts.
“I think certainly the anticipation, we’ve done that with the first one. Came out of it fine, today I think there will be a lot more normalcy,” Roberts said before the game.
“Excited to see him throw the baseball, expect him to be a lot more efficient, better pitch-making. I’m not sure if it’s going to be one or two innings, but it’s going to be fun today.”
Shohei Ohtani’s hitting impacted by pitching?
Ohtani is among multiple Dodgers stars who have fallen into a slump of late, but his is more magnified because of being a two-way player.
However, Roberts does not believe Ohtani’s ramp-up and return to pitching has adversely impacted him at the plate.
“I have not seen signs of fatigue. I think like all hitters, when you start chasing outside the strike zone, it’s hard to have consistent success,” Roberts said.
“I don’t think that’s a fatigue thing, but we’ll manage it. I can only take him at his word. And the swing speed and all this stuff we track, is still in line (with normal averages). But like I said, once we ramp up more, there might be a different conversation.”
Ohtani remained in his usual leadoff spot of the Dodgers lineup, but Roberts indicated that could change at some point down the line.
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