"I wasn't surprised, so I can't even say I was relieved," Roberts said. "I think that he is understanding of what he did last year, what he had to go through, to then how best to prepare himself for '26 to do both. It just seemed like the right decision. So I wasn't surprised. And I feel really good about it."
"Honestly, I don't think that I'm going to manage him any differently as far as each outing," Roberts said. "I think there's certainly going to be extra time. It's not a five-day, six-day rotation, so there's going to be rest in between. "But I think outside of that, it's not going to be the two-inning, three-inning governor. I think he's going to be used as a normal pitcher."
"Well, he's not going to pitch in the WBC, but he will be ramping up his arm to get ready for this season," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts revealed at the annual DodgerFest. "And I think for me, I don't know how many innings he threw last year, but obviously, with the full offseason going north of what he did last year."
Shohei Ohtani will represent Samurai Japan as the designated hitter in the 2026 World Baseball Classic alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He will not pitch in the WBC but will use the tournament to ramp up his arm for the upcoming Dodgers season. Ohtani returned to pitching last season after missing all of 2024 while recovering from right elbow surgery and logged 67.1 innings across the regular season and postseason. The Dodgers executed a methodical build-up and plan to include Ohtani in a six-man rotation that provides extra rest between starts while treating him as a normal pitcher without strict inning caps.
Read at Dodger Blue
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