Shohei Ohtani's return to the mound has offered a glimpse of a bygone era of Major League Baseball.
For the first time in a while -- since the universal designated hitter was made permanent beginning with the 2022 season -- a pitcher is batting on a regular basis. Ohtani obviously isn’t your average pitcher, and he’s been limited to short stints on the mound so far, but his return to two-way status is certainly notable -- in more ways than one.
To truly appreciate how incredible it is that Ohtani can hit at a high level while pitching, consider what it was like back when pitchers hit ALL the time in MLB. (Spoiler: They didn’t do great, but many still enjoyed it.)
“It was a lot of fun hitting,” Yankees reliever Luke Weaver said. “It was devastating most of the time.”
The recent rule change to institute a permanent DH in the National League spelled the end of pitchers hitting regularly while also affecting roster construction, in-game strategy and more. Interviews with a host of players -- pitchers and hitters alike -- made one thing clear: While players have acclimated to the transition to a permanent DH, there are things they miss about it.
Or don’t miss, in some cases.
“I am not a fan of watching pitchers hit,” Athletics All-Star DH Brent Rooker said. “I thought it was a waste of time, generally.”
No easy feat
Pretty much every MLB pitcher grew up both pitching and hitting, but for many of them, their last competitive swings are now a distant memory. Those who got to take their hacks in the Major Leagues -- like veteran reliever T.J. McFarland -- won’t soon forget it.
“It just brings you back,” said the lefty, who went 1-for-15 with 12 strikeouts in 18 plate appearances, mostly while with Arizona from 2017-19. “It brings you back to Little League and the fact that you can do it all, so that’s just so cool.”
Young pitchers like Hayden Birdsong of the Giants can’t relate. Birdsong entered junior college ball in 2020 as a two-way player only to find out his coaches had a much higher opinion of his pitching arm than his skills at the plate. Birdsong hasn’t hit since.
“I’m basically all-time defense -- something that most people don’t think they want to do for the rest of their life,” he said. “It’d be cool if I could hit, but at the same time I don’t really want to see 100 mph [from the batter’s box].”
Phillies All-Star Zack Wheeler, a right-handed pitcher but left-handed batter, grew up pitching and playing multiple positions on the diamond. He referred to hitting as the “fun part of baseball.”
That can certainly be true -- think Bartolo Colon’s legendary home run in 2016 -- but critics of pitcher hitting always point to their general incompetence at the plate. In 2021, the last season pitchers batted regularly, they hit .110 with a .293 OPS and struck out 44.8% of the time.
Pitchers will be the first to admit that facing fellow Major League hurlers is no easy feat. Phillies reliever Matt Strahm, who had 35 career plate appearances from 2018-19 with the Padres, recalled taking a particularly nasty breaking ball from Max Scherzer for a strike during a game in Washington.
“He threw me a front-hip slider that buckled me so much I didn’t know if I needed to get out of the way towards the plate or out of the box, and it ended up middle,” Strahm said. “I remember (Yan) Gomes was catching, and I grunted, like, ‘Ugh.’ He just chuckled and he was like, ‘Where you going, kid?’ I was like, ‘Dude, that’s not fair.’”
With pitchers getting “nastier and nastier” on the mound, in the words of Mets starter Clay Holmes, it’s hard to envision much different results if pitcher hitting was reinstituted. Birdsong acknowledged it would probably lead to “a lot of strikeouts.” Still, he’d happily volunteer.
“If the opportunity comes, that would be awesome,” he said.
Making their mark
It wasn’t all three-pitch punchouts and noncompetitive at-bats. Pitchers had their highs at the plate, too -- and their own set of strategies.
After going 0-for-8 in 2018, Strahm went 6-for-21 with a .729 OPS for San Diego in 2019. He laced a double off Adam Wainwright for his first career hit and was pleasantly surprised when shortstop Paul DeJong offered him the baseball afterward.
“He was like, ‘Do you want this?’” Strahm recalled. “I was like, ‘Absolutely. You can throw that one in the dugout.’”
Even in the post-DH era, pitchers have still had their very rare moments at the plate, but it requires some unusual circumstances. Typically that means a team surrendering its DH spot by moving its starting DH to a position, either because of an injury or a strategic decision. In fact, that happened a couple times in the first half of the 2025 season.
On March 30, D-backs pitcher Ryne Nelson delivered a pinch-hit RBI single in the eighth inning in his first at-bat since college in 2018. The results were not nearly as successful in a wild, 11-inning game between the Rangers and Orioles on June 30, when both teams sent up pitchers. Baltimore’s Trevor Rogers and the Rangers' Jack Leiter went a combined 0-for-3 with three K’s, Leiter whiffing on three pitches in his first career plate appearance in the bottom of the 11th.
Still, hits like Nelson’s are always celebrated by pitchers who dream of making their mark at the plate. Wheeler, a strong hitter among hurlers with 44 career hits and a home run to his name, said no pitcher wants to be an easy out.
The Phillies right-hander detailed his plan at the plate: waiting on a fastball that he expected to come either the first or second pitch of an at-bat. Being a pitcher, he’d break down how opponents would operate, and it helped him predict their pitch sequencing -- or try to.
“Me, how I’d pitch a pitcher, that’s kind of how I was thinking as a hitter,” Wheeler said. “Sometimes I was completely wrong.”
Pitching to a fellow pitcher isn’t as easy as it sounds, according to several hurlers who have been there and done that. Facing someone whose scouting report is often practically blank can be a “mind trick,” according to Weaver. Strahm said landing a first-pitch strike to a pitcher is sometimes unexpectedly difficult. And no one wants to plunk a fellow pitcher.
“A majority of the time unless it’s (Zack) Greinke, Madison Bumgarner or someone who’s obviously got the green light, more than likely they’re taking first pitch,” Strahm said. “Your strike zone looks like you are trying to hit a dinner plate all of a sudden instead of just throwing it (to) the catcher.”
For starters like Wheeler, taking batting practice and hitting in games was the perfect way to break up the monotony of a pitching routine. Wheeler said it was a way to “get some laughs” and keep things light -- and it was something his teammates always enjoyed.
“Yeah, it was hilarious,” former Phillies infielder Nick Maton said. “Wheeler and all them just taking G hacks up there. They actually had good swings.”
Strategy shake-ups
While beloved by many, the oddity that was pitchers hitting felt out of place to others. White Sox outfielder Michael A. Taylor, who spent his first six seasons with the Nationals under the old National League rules, said that after the institution of the universal DH, “the game just felt right.”
“To take that pressure off the pitchers, to add another bat to the lineup, to make it a little more competitive one through nine,” Taylor said.
Cubs catcher Carson Kelly, who like Taylor has spent time in both leagues, said the rules change made baseball “a little bit of a different game” -- something he’s gotten used to.
“There’s a little bit more thinking when there’s a pitcher in the lineup,” Kelly said. “‘Do we attack this 8 hitter or 7 hitter? Are they going to pinch-hit for the 9 hitter?’ A little bit different there, but now that it’s universal, you kind of get in the rhythm and the flow of it of when to call games and how to call games.”
One thing’s for sure: Kelly doesn’t miss dealing with fewer foul tips to the mask, a byproduct of adding another full-time hitter to the starting nine.
“A lot of the pitchers -- I love the pitchers, but sometimes they don’t know how to really square up a baseball, so I would get a lot of foul balls off the face and stuff,” he said.
Holmes, back in the NL after beginning his career with the Pirates, is happy to “let the DH take it” when it comes to his at-bats. He counted himself as a fan of the decision, particularly how it allows teams to load their roster with sluggers.
“It creates opportunities for more hitters, especially power hitters, that people like to see,” Holmes said. “From strategy, from roster management, you had to have some versatile guys off the bench that can kind of fill in different positions if needed with double switches and whatnot.”
The move away from pitchers hitting also ends Holmes’ days moonlighting as, essentially, a mannequin with a bat. Several times with Pittsburgh, he was sent out on deck as if he was about to bat for himself, even when his manager had no intention of letting him step to the plate.
That way, Holmes explained, opposing teams would have to scramble to get an appropriate reliever ready to face a last-second pinch-hitter.
“You would know going out there, ‘I’m not hitting,’” Holmes recalled. “‘I’m just out here as almost a dummy in a sense.’”
Relatively speaking, that wasn’t too bad. Plenty of pitchers injured themselves at the plate or running the bases -- Jacob deGrom (a career .204 hitter with three home runs) hurt his shoulder on a swing in 2021.
Injury risk is inherent in the Major Leagues, of course, but players like Taylor saw no reason for pitchers to put themselves on the line at the plate.
“I remember times almost holding your breath like, ‘I hope this guy doesn’t get hit or pull an oblique,’” Taylor said. “There’s too many things that can happen.”
‘Memories I’ll get to keep’
When the DH came to the NL once and for all, Wheeler wasn’t a fan. It wasn’t just because he took hitting seriously -- he also liked the differences between the AL and NL and enjoyed getting a chance to play under both sets of rules.
But he can’t deny the change has done the Phillies good. Without it, they never would have had space in their lineup for a bat-first player like 2025 All-Star Game MVP Kyle Schwarber, and who knows whether the Phils’ deep postseason runs in 2022 and 2023 would still have happened?
“It’s worked out for us, obviously, with Kyle,” Wheeler said.
As you might expect, designated hitters tend to be fans of the move. Rooker thought the change should have been made earlier, saying it evens the playing field by creating chances for hitters like Schwarber and himself. It was a point that came to the forefront at Tuesday night’s All-Star Game, when those two hitters struck big blows in the first ASG swing-off, which lifted Schwarber to MVP honors.
“Obviously, we’re always pro-player, and the creation of more jobs, the creation of more opportunities for guys to get in lineups and make a living is always a positive thing from our perspective,” Rooker said.
While not all players think along the same lines, those we interviewed mostly came out in favor of the DH -- or, at least, they’ve grown to accept it. But there are still things they miss.
For Strahm, it’s the strategy involved in managing a lineup -- double switches, pinch-hitters and more. For McFarland, it’s something as simple as taking batting practice on the field.
“I liked hitting,” McFarland said. “I wasn’t good at it, but I liked hitting.”
Weaver will remember some of the intricacies of the offensive side of the game, even though he no longer gets to practice them: “Getting a bunt down. Moving a runner. Maybe running into something. Getting on base. Beating out balls at second to break up double plays. Being able to run home -- I did a lot of pinch-running back then.”
“It’s just cool,” he said. “Those are memories I’ll get to keep.”