Shohei Ohtani still has no pitching timetable as Dodgers get healthy for stretch run

LOS ANGELES — With just two months remaining in the regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers are beginning to look like the team they envisioned entering the year.

Kiké Hernández is back after a lengthy absence. Edwin Díaz is set to rejoin the bullpen. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow continue progressing toward full strength.

But the biggest question surrounding the Dodgers remains unanswered.

Despite positive updates on Shohei Ohtani's overall health, manager Dave Roberts acknowledged there is still no timetable for the two-way superstar to resume pitching, raising the possibility that the Dodgers may have to navigate the stretch run without one of the game's elite starting pitchers.

"I think we're just trying to be prudent," Roberts said of Ohtani's recovery. "Overall and total, I feel very good for the rest of the season with all three of those guys as starting pitchers." 

The optimism Roberts expressed also included Snell and Glasnow, but Ohtani's situation is clearly more complicated.

While Ohtani continues to feel healthy as a hitter and baserunner, Roberts admitted the club is approaching the point where the extended layoff will require the reigning National League MVP to essentially restart his pitching buildup.

"We are getting closer to that," Roberts said. "He's a starting pitcher and when you start missing three, four, five weeks, that buildup that you've got to kind of start up again." 

Roberts said Ohtani has been running aggressively again because his knee is no longer limiting him offensively, but the discomfort associated with pitching remains a separate issue.

"He continues to say that the running doesn't affect his knee," Roberts said. "Recently he's been running harder, so that tells me that his knee feels better and isn't compromised running or swinging the bat." 

That distinction has become increasingly important.

Ohtani continues to produce in the lineup, but his long-awaited return to the mound remains without a target date, leaving the Dodgers to hope their other frontline starters can stabilize the rotation before October.

There was considerably better news elsewhere on the injury front.

Roberts confirmed reliever Edwin Díaz has "checked all his boxes" and is expected to return Wednesday, giving the bullpen another experienced arm as the playoff race intensifies. 

Glasnow also appears close.

The right-hander is scheduled to throw a live batting practice session at Dodger Stadium, and Roberts said he expects a rehab assignment to follow shortly afterward.

"From what I hear, he's in a good spot," Roberts said. 

Snell, meanwhile, is further along in his recovery.

Roberts said everything he has heard from the medical staff has been encouraging and expressed confidence that both Snell and Glasnow will be significant contributors over the final two months of the season. 

Another welcome sight was Hernández returning to the active roster after missing nearly nine weeks with a Grade 3 oblique strain.

The veteran utility player admitted the diagnosis initially left him fearing the worst.

"I thought that it was surgical," Hernández said. "I didn't really know how obliques worked… when I heard Grade 3, I thought maybe my season was over." 

The emotional toll hit immediately.

Hernández revealed he suffered what he believes was his first panic attack while driving home after receiving the MRI results.

"I had to call my wife and I could barely talk," Hernández said. "I just realized all you can do is take it one day at a time… I tried to be the best rehabber I could and during the games I tried to be the best teammate that I could." 

He also managed to inject some humor into what had been one of the most difficult injuries of his career, joking that his body "protected" him from one particularly painful consequence of the injury.

"I didn't poop for like six days after I got hurt," Hernández said with a laugh. "People said that was excruciating, but I didn't experience that." 

Now healthy again, Hernández said he has no intention of changing the aggressive style that has defined his career.

"The way that I play the game, I only know one speed, and that's all out," Hernández said. "I can't change the way that I play because I don't know how to play any other way." 

Roberts said Hernández's versatility will once again become a valuable weapon, particularly with a stretch of left-handed opposing starters approaching.

"I see him at third. I can see him in left a little bit," Roberts said. "He's checked all the boxes. He feels good." 

For the Dodgers, the timing could hardly be better.

The roster that spent much of the summer patching together lineups and rotations is finally beginning to resemble a championship contender at full strength.

Yet as encouraging as the returns of Hernández, Díaz, Snell and Glasnow may be, the organization's biggest October question remains the same.

Until Ohtani is back on a major league mound, the Dodgers' most important player is still only half of what makes him unique.