Los Angeles Dodgers baseball president Andrew Friedman said today that the team is expected to start the season with a five-man starting pitcher rotation, and will not change to a six-man rotation until Shohei Ohtani can start pitching.

It is currently speculated that the four players in the starting pitcher rotation will be Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Yushin Yamamoto and Ronki Sasaki. The remaining 1 starting pitcher rotation is expected to be contested by Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin, with other starting pitchers including Bobby Miller, Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius, among others.

Among them, Tony Gonsolin was the main starting pitcher in 2022, but he underwent elbow ligament reconstruction surgery in September 2023 and was directly reimbursed for the entire season last year. May, who is also reimbursed for elbow ligament reconstruction surgery, has been unable to move freely between the major leagues and minor leagues, and may have set off from the bullpen if she hadn't grabbed the starting rotation.

Although Yushin Yamamoto and Rangki Sasaki expected a long break between starts, the Dodgers, who started the season in Japan a week early, had a looser schedule for more than a month ahead. There are seven days of truce from March 27 to May 1, with a truce every Thursday, so there's plenty of room for five starters on duty.

Previously, Dodgers head coach Dave Roberts said the team plans not to let Shohei Ohtani play as a pitcher until May. And yesterday he stressed that although he will not pitch until May, the team expects to return him early rather than slowly. Since Ohtani will play as a major league player at the start of the season, the Dodgers are not scheduled to let him play in the minor leagues, and he is not expected to pitch in the spring training warm-up game, so he can only prepare for the official game by simulating the game.