Shohei Ohtani Will Pitch On Just 3 Days Rest In World Series Game 7

Sho enough, the Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani will be pitching with only three days rest for the winner-take-all Game 7 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. But will that be enough rest? Probably not for most mortals. But Ohtani is not your typical mortal. He’s not even your typical major league baseball pitcher. He is Shohei “Oh My” Ohtani. The freaking unicorn who is both a pitching and a hitting star. Not just the greatest “Sho” on Earth but potentially the greatest of all time in not only baseball but perhaps even all of sports.

Ohtani Threw 93 Pitches Three Days Ago

The Sho-time concern, of course, is that Ohtani wasn’t exactly relaxing in a comfy chair watching the latest episode of I Love LA on Wednesday. That night, he was on the mound as the starting Dodgers pitcher for Game 4 of the World Series. That came the same day he had been on the field for Game 3. I say same day because Game 3 was an 18-inning affair that finally ended right before midnight Pacific Time, which meant he hadn’t left the stadium until earlier morning Wednesday, the same day as Game 4.

Ohtani had put in a lot of work that Game 3 too. He had hit two home runs and two doubles and walked the five other times he had stepped up to bat in that titanic game 3 that had lasted 6 hours and 39 minutes. So, he was probably already kind of tired for the start of Game 4.

In Game 4, Ohtani threw 93 pitches against the Blue Jays before being relieved by Anthony Banda in the seventh inning. Things sort of fell apart for the Dodgers in that inning with the Blue Jays ending up scoring four runs to extend their lead and eventually roll to a 6-2 victory. So was a stressful outing both physically and mentally.

And it’s not as if Ohtani spent the subsequent three days at a spa amongst magical marmots and pumpkin spice aromas. He played in game 5 as a designated hitter where the Dodgers got shelled 6-1, traveled from Los Angeles to Toronto and then played all of game 6, again as a designated hitter, where the Dodgers eked out a 3-1 victory to extend the series to Game 7. Yeah, that’s not a lot of rest for the weary. And it’s certainly not the type of rest that a major league pitcher typically gets between starts.

Pitching Strained Many Different Parts Of Ohtani’s Body

Pitchers need rest because pitching is like a fruitcake mixed with concrete—some might say mixed with even more concrete. It’s hard, very hard. The throwing motion puts so much strain on many different parts of your body.

One obviously affected part of your body is your arm. That’s because you typically throw a ball with your hands and not some other body part like your genitals. The snapping forward motion can put a lot of stress on your forearm as well as your elbow.

That’s why one common injury that you see is to your UCL. That’s an acronym for your ulnar collateral ligament that runs across your elbow joint. You may have heard of the so-called “Tommy John” surgery named after the first big name big league pitcher who got such a surgery. This typs of surgery is done to repair a tear of your UCL. Ohtani already underwent such surgery when he was an Angel. Not an angel with wings, a halo and appearances on the TV series Charmed, of course, but a member of the Los Angeles Angels.

When pitching, you’ve got to shoulder a ton of stress as well, literally. Your rotator cuff and shoulder in general get rotated a heck of a lot. That can lead to various strains and sprains of the muscles, tendons and ligaments of that area.

Pitching isn’t just about arming yourself, though. You could say baby’s got back too. Throwing can put stress your lower back including your lumbar spine. That’s especially the case if your mechanics are off.

If your mechanics are off, the hips don’t lie either. You are supposed to use your legs to generate much of the power behind each pitch, kind of like how you should be using your legs to lift a beer keg. Since your legs should be attached to the rest of your body at your hips (if they aren’t call your doctor immediately), the motions of your legs are going to affect how your hips and the rest of your pelvis rotate.

Ideally Ohtani Would Be Getting At Least Four Days Rest

All of this has translated to major league starting pitchers typically getting four to five days of rest between starts. Three days of rest is really the minimum. That’s why MLB teams usually have a four-to-five pitcher starting rotation. The MLB offers a guide for youth and adolescent pitchers. The amount of rest recommended depends on two big things: your age and the number of pitches in your last outing.

As you can see if you are 19 to 22 years of age, you shouldn’t be exceeding 120 pitches on a given day. You could go again the next day if you had thrown no more than 30 times. You’ll need at least one intervening day of rest if you were in the 31 to 45 pitch range. Being in the 46 to 60 pitch range means two days of rest, 61 to 80 three days and 81 to 105 means four days at least. Once you’ve gone 106 pitches or more, you are now in the five days of rest range. So if you were to use these younger adult guidelines, the 31-year-old Ohtani should be getting at a minimum four days rest.

But Ohtani Is Ohtani

But Ohtani is Ohtani and not Umm-tani or No-tani. And this is game 7 of the World Series with the Dodgers and Blue Jays tied 3-3. The Dodgers already used one of their four aces Yoshinobu Yamamoto through six innings in their 3-1 victory on Friday, so he’s out. Tyler Glasnow made a surprise relief appearance in the ninth inning of Friday’s game as well. So, he’s still a possibility for a number of innings for Saturday but may not be quite as fresh. Blake Snell who started Game 5 on Thurday will only have had two days of rest. So they could some Ohtani my goodness on Saturday.

The additional challenge again is that Ohtani is an every day player, meaning he has batted as a designated hitter in every single game of the World Series. That has put additional stress on his body and mind. It also hasn’t afforded him the time that pitchers usually have to focus solely on preparing to pitch.

But then again, everyday every day players don’t strike out 10 batters and hit three home runs as he did in the deciding Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. Everyday players don’t leave Most Valuable Player award winners and future Hall-Of-Famers looking like a teenager at a Taylor Swift concert as Freddie Freeman did as he watched Ohtani launch a 469-foot homer out of Dodgers stadium in that Game 4 against the Brewers.

So, we’ll see if Ohtani’s ability to pitch without as much rest is yet another thing that separates him from the rest. This is the biggest of shows in baseball right now. And it’s another opportunity for Shohei Ohtani to “sho” what he can do.