Latest Shohei Ohtani pitching performance should scare rest of MLB

As Bleacher Report noted, it was the hardest-thrown pitch of Ohtani's career.

After throwing one inning in each of his first two starts, Ohtani pitched two full innings against the Royals, allowing two base runners (one walk, one hit) in the seven batters he faced with one strikeout. He threw an efficient 27 pitches, including 20 for strikes, and got ahead in the count with a strike to begin each at-bat.

If Ohtani, who didn't pitch in 2024 while recovering from 2023 Tommy John surgery, continues throwing as hard and fast as he did against the Royals, it could make the reigning NL MVP even more dangerous than he already is.

For his career entering Saturday, Ohtani had a 3.01 earned run average (ERA) with 610 strikeouts in 483.2 innings. In 2022, he led the AL with 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings and finished fourth in Cy Young voting.

Already mostly unhittable, Ohtani's fastball looks more formidable after surgery. As terrifying as that is for MLB batters, it's a welcome sign to the Dodgers, who need any good pitching news.

This season, Los Angeles has used 16 starting pitchers, with Roki Sasaki, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell, three expected rotational pieces, among the arms to have battled injuries.

While Ohtani hasn't been able to give L.A. many innings as he ramps back into form, it's been about as good a return as the organization could have hoped.

Ohtani is already the majors' top power hitter with the top average exit velocity (95.1 mph), barrel rate (22.5 percent) and hard-hit rate (61.2 percent), but he could end up being more valuable to the Dodgers on the bump.