Ohtani pitching in playoffs? Roberts says 'anything is possible'

ATLANTA – When asked if Shohei Ohtani was a possibility to pitch in the postseason on MLB Network Radio, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts answered as candidly as he could.

“I think that you should always leave some margin, a crack in the door for any possibility,” Roberts said on SiriusXM MLB Network Radio. “If things line up and there’s a need, and the game, [Ohtani’s] body, everything is telling us that it makes sense in that situation, great. It would be storybook.”

The response got a lot of immediate traction, as almost anything regarding Ohtani does. Ohtani would undoubtedly give the Dodgers’ depleted pitching staff a much-needed boost. But the two-time American League Most Valuable Player is unlikely to help Los Angeles in the postseason.

“The question I was asked was, ‘Is it a possibility?’ Anything is possible,” Roberts expanded on his earlier comments. “We’ve still got a lot of work to get to October and through October. I hope that’s on his mind as far as motivation for his rehab. But the odds of it coming to pass are very slim. But they’re not zero. That’s my only thing.”

Ohtani has been rehabbing from a second major right elbow surgery all season long and has progressed to throwing bullpen sessions before games. The two-way player has not faced hitters up to this point, and it’s unclear when that step in his progression is slated for.

“He’s probably, I mean, I don’t know exactly because his calendar is obviously a little quirky,” said Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior. “But if I had to guess based on the amount of ‘pens, he’d still be at least a couple more weeks before we got to having that discussion. And even then, that might be accelerated.”

Another hurdle for Ohtani and the Dodgers would be his rehab scheduled during the postseason. Right now, Ohtani is getting all his work in before games. But with the high stress of postseason games and the risk of injury, it also remains unclear just how much work the two-way player would go through before games, if any at all.

If Ohtani shuts down his throwing progression during the postseason, any slim chance of him being an option out of the bullpen is done. But for now, the Dodgers are at least keeping the door open, especially late in the postseason if they get there.

“I just think we all have to feel very confident that the buildup, the stress of pitches, that he would be able to handle,” Roberts said. “The cost and benefit of him potentially doing something like that, we all have to be in lockstep and it’s gotta make complete sense.”

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