Managing Shohei Ohtani’s time key to Dodgers season

He was hitless in three at-bats at the plate, with a walk. That double duty is directly followed by the Dodgers’ scheduled off day Thursday, before starting a homestand on Friday . “How you balance the workload, the focus on the pitching, to then still really lock in on those four or five at-bats, it’s not easy.

Obviously, no one else is doing it,” manager Dave Roberts said last week during the opening homestand. “He definitely has a handle on it, I think as much as anyone can. ” Last year the Dodgers were deliberate in easing Ohtani back into pitching, a year and a half removed from his second Tommy John surgery.

His two-way status affords the Dodgers an advantage currently unavailable to other teams — he doesn’t count against the limit of 13 pitchers on the active roster, so using a six-man rotation doesn’t deplete the bullpen; and when he pitches, he is allowed to remain in games as the designated hitter as long as he starts the game at both positions . The Dodgers last year were fine with Ohtani pitching only one or two innings per start for the first few times out, because any amount he pitched were like free money, reducing the workload for the rest of the staff. But they also started him back on the mound in such a limited capacity because the alternative of building up in simulated rehab games proved to be too large of a burden on his time.

“We got to the point where it feels like we should take that next step, and almost finish the rehab at the major league level, because of the taxing nature of what he was doing,” general manager Brandon Gomes said last June . “So much of it the getting hot, throwing a live (batting practice) at 1:30, two o’clock, cooling down, then coming back and getting ready to lead off a game. I can’t even imagine how taxing that is.