Glendale, Arizona - Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani took another step toward a return to the pitching mound on Saturday, throwing his first official bullpen session at the Los Angeles Dodgers spring training in Arizona.

Ohtani, who didn't pitch last season as he recovered from elbow ligament surgery in September of 2023 and then needed surgery on his left shoulder in November, is expected to be ready to both pitch and hit for the Dodgers this season.

The Dodgers don't expect Ohtani to pitch in pre-season Major League Baseball games, and manager Dave Roberts has said he won't pitch when the Dodgers open the regular season in Japan.

But Roberts has said Ohtani could face live hitters sometime in March and could be in the team's rotation sometime in May.

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"The ball was coming out really good," Roberts said of Ohtani's delivery off the mound. "I think he seemed pretty pleased with it. The command was good, ball was coming out good."

"Really positive day for Shohei," he added.

Ohtani will continue to be a key figure in the Dodgers' batting lineup as he gradually builds up the intensity of his pitches and his pitch and inning counts in training and likely through simulated games.

Ohtani, who served as a two-way hitting and pitching threat during most of his first six seasons in MLB with the Los Angeles Angels, signed a free agent deal with the Dodgers in December 2023 for 10 years at $700 million, the richest deal in US sports history.

Even though he didn't pitch last season, he was named the National League Most Valuable Player after a historic 2024 campaign that saw him become the first player with 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single campaign.