Dodger Details: Shohei Ohtani's 2-way show, Freddie Freeman's struggles and more
LOS ANGELES — Baseball's most novel between-innings entertainment starts as soon as Shohei Ohtani throws his final pitch in the top of the first inning. The ensuing 130 seconds are the equivalent of a NASCAR pit crew removing the equipment that makes Ohtani, the pitcher, and applying all necessary for Ohtani, the batter, to step up to the plate as the reigning National League MVP.
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Ohtani's 18th and final pitch Sunday afternoon was a cutter that Washington Nationals first baseman Nathaniel Lowe flailed at, starting the chain with little time for Ohtani to celebrate a scoreless second outing off of elbow surgery or his first two strikeouts in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform. He hustled to a foreign substance check with home-plate umpire Carlos Torres before walking toward the front of the Dodgers dugout, where a buffet of equipment options awaited him all ready to go.
He quickly stuffed his sliding pad into his back right pocket and rolled up his right pants leg to strap on a shin guard. Next came his white elbow guard that he slid onto his twice-repaired right arm. A brief interruption came when he reached for his batting gloves, accidentally dropping them onto the ground and adding a couple of seconds to his tally. He slid his helmet onto his head and did not have time to spray his usual adhesive onto his bat. A minute and 40 seconds had elapsed before Ohtani took his first practice swing. Total time elapsed before stepping in against Nationals starter Michael Soroka: 2 minutes, 10 seconds.
When Ohtani finally returned to the dugout after chasing an elevated fastball for a strikeout, it had been 11 minutes between his first pitch and his first time taking a seat to catch his breath in the Dodgers' 13-7 win.
'I marvel at it,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
That doesn't mean it will always be this way. Roberts broached the idea of moving Ohtani down in the order on his start days when speaking with the superstar ahead of his first start Monday. Ohtani assured he was fine with leading off, even with the quick turnaround. Still, the door is open to hitting Ohtani second, third or even fourth to assure Ohtani more of a break between the mound and the plate — especially during home games.
Shohei records his first strikeout as a Dodger! pic.twitter.com/k5a5r3JcSF
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 22, 2025
This is all new for the Dodgers and something Ohtani hasn't had to do since 2023. Ohtani was 4-for-23 with 11 strikeouts since returning to the mound in big-league games entering Sunday. Just a seven-game sample that largely would go ignored if it didn't coincide with Ohtani returning to pitching.
'I've been able to come back to game action earlier than expected. In that sense, I do feel like I do have to work on some things,' Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. 'But at the same time, I do feel like I can perform better, even better than I used to be able to perform at.'
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Roberts said he hadn't noticed any fatigue with Ohtani, who had expanded the strike zone quite often with his swings this week. The manager noted that Ohtani's bat speed and other internal metrics are 'in line' with his norms. (For what it's worth, his average swing speed had gone from 76.2 mph to 75.4 mph entering Sunday, still a small sample of just 38 swings.)
He ran a bat speed of 79.6 mph in the seventh inning, hooking a hard-hit grounder fair for a bases-clearing triple down the line to break the game open. Then, 76.2 mph in the eighth when he lofted his first home run during a game when he pitched since Aug. 23, 2023 — the game when he re-tore his ulnar collateral ligament.
Ohtani's bat speed seems fine. So did his pitching. He touched 98.8 mph with his fastball and showed much better command in the zone, something Ohtani said was because he cleaned up his delivery with pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness. While the Dodgers have floated the idea of building Ohtani's workload on each successive outing, the plan was always for him to go just one inning Sunday.
'It's going to be a gradual process,' Ohtani said.
It's something to keep in mind as the Dodgers deliberately stretch him out. Everything appears fluid, including just how built up the Dodgers would like Ohtani to be pitching-wise.
'I think we're always gonna be cautious,' Roberts said. 'So I don't even know what that's going to look like, to be 'fully built-up.' I don't think anyone knows what that looks like. Because it's not a normal starting pitcher. So to say six (innings) and 90 (pitches), I don't even know if we'll get to that point.'
Between rounds of treatment on his surgically repaired right ankle that has become routine, Freddie Freeman vented. His swing has not been right. The Dodgers' three former MVPs atop the lineup — Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman — have slumped. It coincided with baseball's best lineup looking quite mortal before breaking out Sunday afternoon against a Nationals pitching staff that entered ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.89 ERA.
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Freeman has felt his struggles acutely. He's now 15-for-75 (.200) since the start of June after going 1-for-4 with a bloop single and two strikeouts Sunday.
'I haven't been very good for a while,' Freeman said Saturday night.
He's repeated his typical net drill 'many, many times.' He's tried having his third round of hitting outside on the field, one of his normal troubleshoot strategies when he's scuffling.
'I've gone through every cue 16 times over again in the last six weeks, so just waiting for it to click,' Freeman said.
His season line remains sterling (.321 average, .914 OPS). In all likelihood, his June will be a blip. Freeman's frustration was palpable, nonetheless. The good news is, his ankle is still manageable. The quad issue he was dealing with for part of this slump is a thing of the past.
'No aches. No pains,' Freeman said. 'The only pain is the swing. Maybe tomorrow.'
Max Muncy had more than a handful of minutes to think in the sixth inning, a rarity in the pitch clock era. Nationals reliever Jose A. Ferrer had entered into a jam, went down 2-1 in the count to Muncy and then lingered uncomfortably around the mound.
'It was very difficult to throw in the zone (with the mound like that),' Ferrer explained in Spanish.
Catcher Keibert Ruiz joined him to try to find a solution. So did a pair of umpires until Prior ran down the tunnel to retrieve the grounds crew to work on the mound.
2025年6月23日 WSH vs LAD
ソロカから変わった
Jose A. Ferrerの要求で、水入り？土入れ
流れが、うーんと思ってたら
10号グランドスラム
イイネ
7回、守備も溌剌としてきた pic.twitter.com/DraNBvpie6
— Ozzy_Days (@Jiji_Days) June 22, 2025
So, Muncy waited. He'd already seen Ferrer the night before, and the lefty was pitching for the fourth time in five days. Familiarity was on Muncy's side. Now, so was time.
'For me, it was just catch your breath,' Muncy said. 'When he's ready, he's ready. And let's get a swing off.'
The delay appeared primed to stunt the only momentum the Dodgers had generated all afternoon. Soroka had struck out a career-high 10 Dodgers through the first five innings and held a 3-0 lead. When Dalton Rushing led off the sixth with a double, it marked Los Angeles' second hit of the game. A walk and hit by pitch left them loaded as the Nationals turned to Ferrer, who went down in the count and asked for work to be done on the mound.
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Two pitches later, Muncy got a sinker over the heart of the plate and laced it to left center for a go-ahead grand slam, his 200th home run in a Dodger uniform. He got No. 201 an inning later, launching a center-cut fastball from Cole Henry into the pavilion seats for a three-run homer.
Muncy's season has more than just stabilized after a brutal start. He might even be sneaking into All-Star discussions, entering the day fourth among National League third baseman in FanGraphs WAR (1.6) even before Sunday's two-homer, seven-RBI outburst. He's up to a 131 wRC+, nearly matching his 135 mark from a year ago. Since trying on glasses to correct an astigmatism in his right eye, he's hit .282/.423/.570 with 11 home runs.
'It's definitely a snowball effect,' Muncy said. 'Confidence is high right now. I feel good in the box. I feel really good with my mechanics. I'm seeing the ball well.'
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