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

The Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani will pitching with only three days rest for the winner-take-all Game 7 of the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. Will that be enough rest? 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. The potentially greatest of all time who’s been in the GOAT conversation for so long they might as well nickname him Billy.

Ohtani Threw 93 Pitches Three Days Ago

During his last outing on Wednesday, Game 4 of the World Series, 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. Ohtani may have been tired, having played past midnight of that same day in an 18 inning game where he had hit two home runs.

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 something else like your genitals. You forearm can feel a lot of stress and so can your elbow in the snapping forward motion.

One commonly injured structure is your ulnar collateral ligament that runs across you elbow joint. The so-called “Tommy John” surgery is when you have to surgically repair this UCL. Ohtani already underwent such surgery when he was an Angel. Not an angel with wings and a halo, of course, but a member of the Los Angeles Angels.

You’ve got to shoulder a ton of stress as well, literally. Your rotator cuff get rotated a heck of a lot.

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 generate much of the power behind each pitch. 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 pitcher 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 three 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 the minimum four days rest.

But Ohtani Is Ohtani

But Ohtani is Ohtani. 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. The same applies to Blake Snell who pitched the first part of the 18-inning jam on Tuesday.

The additional challenge is that Ohtani is an every day player, meaning he has batted as a designated hitter in every game of the World Series. That puts additional stress on the body and mind.

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 another opportunity for Shohei Ohtani to “sho” what he can do.