LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani will be the Dodgers starting pitcher on Monday night, and will also be the team’s designated hitter. The two-way player essentially counts as two players in games he is both pitching and hitting, thanks to a major league rule change in 2022.
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association in March of that season agreed to a rule change for two-way players that allows them to remain in the game as designated hitter after they leave the game as a pitcher.
From MLB Rule 5.11(b):
Starting Pitcher as Designated Hitter. It is not mandatory that a Club designate a hitter for the pitcher. However, in the event the starting pitcher will bat for himself, the player will be considered two separate people for purposes of Rule 5.11(a). In such cases, the manager should list 10 players on his team’s lineup card, and this player should be named twice – once as the starting pitcher and once as the Designated Hitter. Thus, if the starting pitcher is replaced, he can continue as the Designated Hitter (but can no longer pitch in the game), and if the Designated Hitter is replaced, he can continue as the pitcher (but can no longer hit for himself). If the player is simultaneously replaced both as a starting pitcher and Designated Hitter, he cannot be replaced by another two-way player filling both roles as separate people (this can be done only once on the initial lineup card by identifying that the starting pitcher will bat for himself).
In other words, as long as Ohtani starts the game as DH and as pitcher, he’s allowed to stay in the game as a hitter after he’s done as a pitcher.
During Ohtani’s first three seasons with the Angels, such a rule did not exist, and he never batted when pitched for his 12 starts from 2018-20 (he missed 2019 after his first Tommy John surgery).
In 2021, the Angels loosened the reins and Ohtani was allowed to fully blossom as a two-way player. He batted in 20 of his 23 pitching starts, but once he was done pitching the only way he could remain in the lineup was to switch to a position, which he did seven times, in either right field or left field.
After the rule change mentioned above, Ohtani has hit in every game he pitched, including 51 times in 2022-23 with the Angels. Monday will be his first time pitching for the Dodgers.
Ohtani in games that he pitched with the Angels hit .284/.385/.523 with 13 home runs, 13 doubles, and three triples in 71 games and 284 plate appearances. The bulk of that hitting production while pitching came in 2023, when he hit .375/.479/.763 with eight home runs, three doubles, and two triples in 23 games and 97 plate appearances.
