Shohei Ohtani Needs No Surgery, Dodgers Expect Him to Pitch

Dodgers fans can exhale: Shohei Ohtani does not need surgery on his left knee, his right arm, or anything else that dragged him down in the second half, and the plan is for him to pitch again in 2027. Andrew Friedman delivered the news Wednesday at the Dodgers' end-of-season press conference at Dodger Stadium, as reported by ESPN.

Doctors prescribed rest, nothing more. The expectation is that his 2027 season will be unaffected, and when he starts ramping up he will train as a two-way player. "I fully expect him to pitch next year," Friedman said. "And I'm not only expecting him to pitch; we're excited about him pitching."

Why this matters after the way 2026 ended

This is the update every Dodgers fan wanted after watching Ohtani limp through October. He went 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in his first 14 starts, with 95 strikeouts and 26 walks in 85 2/3 innings, before pain in his left knee and right biceps shut him down on the mound after July 3. As of Aug. 18 he was slashing .294/.390/.558 with 30 home runs and seven steals, and Friedman said he was still "the consensus MVP" through mid-August.

Then it fell apart. Ohtani finished the regular season with 11 hits and 29 strikeouts over his last 70 at-bats, went 4-for-22 with no extra-base hits in his first seven postseason games, and only broke through with a home run in Game 4 of the NLCS, his first since Aug. 18. By then the Brewers were finishing off the sweep. If you watched those at-bats, you saw a guy whose body was fighting his swing.

The real question: how do the Dodgers manage it?

Friedman did not pretend to have the answer. "This is unprecedented, what he's doing," he said. "We don't have any experience to draw from." The challenge, in his words, is how to "manage through a long season and have him at his best going into October."

The options on the table, per ESPN, include starting his pitching season later, building in more off days, or some mix of both. Several people inside the organization believe Ohtani will have to be more forthcoming about his ailments for any plan to work. Worth remembering: he was not put on the injured list until after Labor Day, which left him only five regular-season games to get his timing back before the playoffs.

Ohtani himself said after the season-ending 6-4 loss on Oct. 15 that he was "not quite satisfied with how things shaped up on the pitching side" and that he would go "back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, training programs" for next season.

What else is on the Dodgers' plate

Friedman said there will be no changes to Dave Roberts' coaching staff. The bigger offseason items are Tarik Skubal's pending free agency and relievers Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips, plus finding some youth for baseball's oldest position player group. But nothing tops getting the Ohtani plan right. The whole lineup slumped in October, posting a .590 OPS in the postseason and going 4-for-27 with runners in scoring position in the NLCS.

Smacktok pick: when early 2027 Ohtani props show up, lean on him being a two-way player again, because the Dodgers say he needs no surgery and will train to pitch. Just do not bank on a full starter's workload out of the gate, since a later pitching start and extra off days are the options the team is already weighing.