The Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t anticipating Shohei Ohtani will be able to make a return to the mound to begin next season after the superstar underwent shoulder surgery Tuesday on his non-throwing arm.
The Dodgers will monitor his recovery throughout the offseason and spring training, which means he won’t likely pitch during the club’s two-game series against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo on March 18-19.
“We’re going to take it piece by piece and get through this, and then take it in one-, two-week chunks and make sure that we’re in a really good place on each of those benchmarks, and then go from there and not try to say, ‘Hey, we need to be ready by this day,”‘ general manager Brandon Gomes said Wednesday, according to Ronald Blum of The Associated Press. “We’re going to let the rehab process play out.”