Shohei Ohtani will make his return to the mound by starting tomorrow’s series opener against the Padres – Dodgers Digest

The Dodgers are coming off back-to-back series wins against their NL West rivals in the Padres and Giants, and they’re about to start wind down their brutal stretch of games with a four-game series against the Padres. What’s made this recent run of games against quality teams so tough is the pitching staff hasn’t been healthy at all, but they’re slowly getting healthier and will now get a big boost to start things on Monday as Shohei Ohtani will be making his return to the mound as The Opener against the Padres.

Shohei Ohtani will be the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers tomorrow night against the San Diego Padres.

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 16, 2025

Basically, it sounds like he’ll be building up in the majors, which makes some sense since the alternative was trot out more of their depth arms instead and/or running pen games anyway without him included.

“He’s ready to pitch in a major-league game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sunday. “He let us know that.”Ohtani voiced that his pitches were good to go Saturday night.“I felt like the intensity was there and my stuff was game-ready,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.

While he’s expected to pitch one inning Monday, he will continue to build up at a rate of about an inning per outing until he’s ready for full-fledged starts. For a Dodgers team that has 14 pitchers on the injured list, it’s a much-needed boost.

Normally we don’t do posts about individual news announcements like this, but if we were gonna make an exception, the return of The Unicorn is certainly a worthy occasion.

Back in February, Dustin did a pitch-by-pitch breakdown of what to expect once he returns, though he may have added a wrinkle or two.

Shohei Pitching > Shohei Hitting pic.twitter.com/UhqtDW3SOS

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 26, 2025

Either way, it’s gonna be a good one tomorrow.