Friday, February 14, 2025
Copyrighted by Sarah Morris, 2025
The Los Angeles Dodgers will begin the 2025 season with a five-man starting rotation until Shohei Ohtani is healthy and ready to start a major league game.
If the Dodgers don’t have any injuries to their expected starters, they have one position to fill. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki will be in the rotation. They have Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, and Landon Knack will be competing for the fifth spot in the rotation.
Both Gonsolin and May are coming off Tommy John surgeries. If May hadn’t had an esophagus surgery last June, he would have pitched for the Dodgers in the 2024 season.
May is a talented right-handed starter but has had trouble staying healthy. Entering his free-agent season, he needs to prove he can stay healthy. He needs to alter his delivery to lessen the stress on his valuable elbow. He should be able to dominate the opposition.
Gonsolin has been a good starter for the Dodgers before having Tommy John surgery in August 2023. He could have pitched in the late of the 2024 season, but the Dodgers wanted to be cautious with him. In the 2022 season, Gonsolin was an All-Star. The Dodgers should put him in the rotation without much competition.
Knack was rushed to the major leagues in the 2024 season since the Dodgers had so many injuries to the starting rotation. In 15 games, Knack had 3 wins and 5 losses with a 3.65 ERA. He needs to mature as a pitcher. The Dodgers need to have a long man in their bullpen. Knack should be their long man who probably will see much action in the first month of the 2024 season.
Watching the competition for the fifth spot in the starting rotation will be interesting during the Dodger spring training.
