If another striker came back from a shoulder operation, there would be concerns. If another launcher returned from an absence of a season spent recovering from a second reconstruction of the elbow, there would be temperate expectations.
Shohei Ohtani The two obstacles will meet this year, but the widespread hypothesis is that it will continue to launch 450 -foot circuits and pump fast balls of 100 mi / h.
“Shohei is going to be Shohei,” said the first dodgers base player Freddie Freeman said.
How realistic is it? As it is realistic that Ohtani will remain the same player who won Three most useful players’ awards? How realistic is it the same striker he was last year, and the same launcher he was previous, when he returns from two major surgeries?
“I just don’t see how he’s not going,” said Freeman.
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Freeman underlined how Ohtani played after partially dislocated his left shoulder when he was surprised stealing the second base In match 2 of the World Series against New York Yankees.
“He played two days later,” said Freeman. “I had to touch him in match 3 to make sure he was real. When you burst your shoulder as it has done and you tear something, you generally cannot raise your arm over your head. I watched him enter a day of training in New York and liking his arm completely over his head. I was, like “How is this man doing this?” »»
Ohtani played the rest of the series.
“So I wouldn’t put anything after Shohei,” said Freeman.
Four days after the Dodgers celebrated their championship with a city center parade, Ohtani underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum. The operation was carried out by the same doctor who repaired his right elbow twice, Dr Neal Elatrache.
A torn Labrum has changed the career trajectory of the former Dodgers Matt Kemp. The same was true for Cody BellingerAnother former Dodgers outfall that now plays for New York Yankees.
Kemp and Bellinger said their shoulders were tight after their operations.
“Surgery of the shoulder was a kind of complicated surgery, the joint is in a complicated place,” said Ohtani. “From the point of view of the enlargement of my amplitude of motion, I had to do more than with the elbow.”
But while Kemp and Bellinger injured their shoulders, the ohtani with left blows injured his rear shoulder.
“For Shohei, hitting the left -hander, it is his rear shoulder is less worrying,” said manager Dave Roberts.
Ohtani began hitting the T-shirts and Roberts examined a few videos from him.
“You just don’t think there was surgery last winter,” said Roberts.
The figures make the same case, because the balls struck by Ohtani move faster than 100 MPH.
“It is always north of any player we have at the moment,” said Roberts.
Ohtani finished last season with 54 circuits, a career summit. Referring to the way Ohtani’s wife is pregnant, Freeman joked: “Now he has daddy’s strength, then maybe he will reach 60 this year.”
The trip to recover its star shape as a launcher could be the most difficult task because coming back from a second surgery from Tommy John is a monumental company.
Walker Buehler faced this challenge last year, and before he became a hero in playoffs for Dodgers, the right-hander posted a 1-6 file and an average of 5.38 points made in 16 regular season departures. The only starting launchers known to undergo a second reconstruction of the elbow and the return to their previous performance levels are Nathan Eovaldi and Jameson Taillon.
Roberts has already excluded that Ohtani is embarking on the opening series of the season against the Cubs of Chicago on March 18 and 19, and Ohtani was vague when he asked him when he could make his first departure.
“We have only made approximate plans,” said Ohtani. “I think we will decide (on a chronology) on my return after throwing enclosure sessions in the camp.”
Ohtani launched the last time in 2023 when he was still with the angels. He had 10-5 with an MPM of 3.13 in 23 departures, but tore his ulnar collateral ligament in the early August. He underwent surgery a month later.
The first time Ohtani had his elbow rebuilt was in his year recruited in 2018. He tried to launch in the 2020 season at the Pandemic but was limited to two ineffective departures.
This time, Ohtani said he felt more comfortable. He briefly interrupted his launch program when his shoulder was repaired in November and again last month when a forest fire forced him, his world and his world renowned dog to evacuate their house for two weeks. Ohtani said his life situation was not what prevented him from training.
“I was in bed with flu at the time,” he said.
With spring training from next week, Ohtani said he was optimistic about his condition. Freeman was also optimistic.
Freeman recalled that Ohtani has already done the unimaginable by launching and striking at the elite levels in the major leagues.
“I would not put anything before the man,” said Freeman.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
