Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani Wins Award, Raising Impossible Standard Higher
Shohei Ohtani was named the National League Pitcher of the Month for April. The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ two-way star went 2-1 with a 0.60 ERA while allowing 17 hits across five starts last month.
Ohtani issued nine walks compared to 34 strikeouts, posted a 0.87 WHIP, and allowed opponents to bat .160 against him in 30 innings. He’s the first Dodgers pitcher to make at least five starts in a month and maintain an ERA of 0.60 or lower since Hyun-Jin Ryu (0.55 ERA in five starts) in July 2019.
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Ohtani hasn’t pitched full-time since 2023, his final season with the Los Angeles Angels. Prior to undergoing major elbow surgery in September of that year, Ohtani was one of the American League’s best pitchers. What he did last month for the Dodgers didn’t come out of left field (or the bullpen, as the case may be).
The Dodgers took their time folding Ohtani into their starting rotation. He didn’t pitch in a game from September 2023 until June 2025. When he was finally cleared to pitch, Ohtani did not throw five innings in a start for more than two months.
The trajectory of Ohtani’s career post-surgery is what made his April performance particularly noteworthy.
In an interview with the Associated Press in March 2024, Dr. Neal ElAttrache described Ohtani’s surgery as a hybrid procedure involving an internal brace - adding a braided suture to repair the torn ligament - as well as the insertion of the tendon like what is done in a traditional Tommy John surgery.
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The procedure is relatively new. How it would affect Ohtani was unclear when he signed a then-record 10-year, $700 million contract in December 2023. The Dodgers were making a historically large bet on Ohtani’s ability to return to form as a pitcher.
While many pitchers have undergone major elbow surgeries, the likelihood they return to their pre-surgery form is less than 100 percent.
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That rate decreases after the second such procedure. Not only has Ohtani been an elite pitcher in 2026, he has done so after serving as the Dodgers’ designated hitter the last two seasons - capturing two National League MVP awards in the process - and playing until the end of October after the end of the regular season.
Ohtani’s pitching success offers a strong endorsement of the hybrid Tommy John/internal brace procedure. It’s also an example of how the 31-year-old star is raising an already impossibly high bar for his peers in MLB.
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This story was originally published May 4, 2026 at 1:13 PM.