Major League Baseball made a two-way player batting lineup rule in 2022.
It’s known by everyone in baseball as the “Shohei Ohtani Rule,” although of course it isn’t called that by MLB.
And when they made it, they must’ve been picturing key moments for Ohtani, or a player like him (will there ever be one?), to deliver while both pitching and hitting in the same game.
Well, it doesn’t get bigger than this.
Saturday night is World Series Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. And the starting pitcher will be Ohtani.
He’ll lead off the batting lineup in the top of the first. He’ll take the mound in the bottom of the first.
The theater doesn’t get better than this.
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What is the ‘Shohei Ohtani rule’?
The Ohtani rule altered how the pitcher spot and the DH spot work in batting lineups.
Prior to 2022, when a pitcher came out of the game on the mound, he had to be removed from the batting lineup. And in games where there was a DH, the DH spot hit for the pitcher spot all game, two separate entities.
But with Ohtani, his teams want him to be able to pitch and hit, both, but they don’t want to lose his bat when he leaves the mound.
The rule makes it so they don’t have to.
This rule alteration allows a team to leave a departed pitcher in as the DH for the remainder of the game. So when Ohtani leaves the mound, he essentially morphs from a pitcher in the batting order to just a designated hitter in the batting order. The Dodgers won’t have to let their relief pitchers hit. Ohtani will hit for them.
Dodgers’ Game 7 plan for Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani will be pitching on three days rest, rather than the typical four (or even five that he sometimes got earlier in his career).
So he probably won’t be expected to last 100 pitches. Maybe he ends up more in the 75-80 range.
But regardless, he’ll spend the whole game atop the batting lineup in the leadoff spot, including when he’s pulled from the mound, thanks to the MLB rule created in 2022.
There won’t ever be a better showcase for baseball than Ohtani leading off and starting as the pitcher in Game 7 of the World Series.
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