LOS ANGELES — When the Dodgers play the Giants this weekend at Oracle Park in San Francisco, they plan to start Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday, Clayton Kershaw on Saturday, and Tyler Glasnow in Sunday’s series finale. All will be on five days rest.
Shohei Ohtani will be the designated hitter per usual for the weekend, but his next pitching start won’t come until the Dodgers return home next week to host the Phillies beginning Monday night. At a minimum, Ohtani will be on nine days rest between starts
when he next takes the mound.
Ohtani was originally slated to start on Tuesday, September 2 against the Pirates at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, but was scratched the day before after dealing with a sickness that interrupted his throwing between starts. Then, when Glasnow was scratched Friday, September 5 in Baltimore, Ohtani filled in on short notice, and struck out five in 3 2/3 scoreless innings.
‘“We just felt that, with the sickness, we moved him up, and just to give him some extra rest on the back end of that last start,” manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.
Ohtani this season has a 3.75 ERA and 2.47 xERA in his 12 starts, with 49 strikeouts against eight walks in 36 innings.
Roberts didn’t yet commit to which game Ohtani will start against the Phillies but said it’s possible he starts the series opener on Monday, September 15. That would also line up Ohtani to start the following Sunday against the Giants at home, directly before the Dodgers’ final scheduled off day of the regular season.
Ohtani has only missed three games this season, the first two in April to be with his wife for the birth of his daughter, then on August 21 at Coors Field sat the day after ptiching during a long stretch of games, something Roberts called a one-time thing.
Six of Ohtani’s 12 starts to date have come with a day off the next day, counting that rest day in Denver. Four of them came in August, after Ohtani was stretched past three innings.
