By Ben Morse, CNN

(CNN) — It’s been a long-time coming, but Shohei Ohtani’s highly-anticipated return to pitching might not be far away.

The Japanese star took a big step to returning to the mound on Sunday when he delighted the crowd at Citi Field ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ game against the New York Mets, facing hitters for the first time in almost two years.

Ohtani threw 22 pitches across five simulated plate appearances. It’s the first time he’s faced hitters since undergoing a procedure to repair the right ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow in September 2023.

Since then, Ohtani has only featured with the bat and his two-way game – which made him a global superstar – has been thwarted.

On Sunday, the three-time MVP threw mostly fastballs, cutters and sinkers with his fastball hovering around 94-95 mph and maxing out at 97 mph.

“I am aware that I do throw a little harder when there is a hitter in the box,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton, per the MLB website. “I try to keep it 93-94, but I know I was touching ‘6 and ‘7s, which I wanted to not do. But it’s a good sign that I could hit that.”

Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said he was predominately happy with how Ohtani performed against live hitters.

“He looks good. He looked healthy,” Prior said. “That’s always the main thing with facing hitters. That he feels confident, his endurance is good, he maintained his stuff. From that standpoint, it was good. Pitch movement-wise, it looked good, too.”

Ohtani faced Dalton Rushing, Kim Hye-seong and LA’s game planning coach JT Watkins in the live session.

It might still be a while before Ohtani returns fully to the mound, however, with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saying before the game that he likely wouldn’t be pitching for the team until after the All-Star break in mid-July: “He’s doing his first simulated game for two innings and in theory you got to build a starter up to five, six innings, and so just the natural progression, I just don’t see it being before that.”

However, Sunday was a big step in that process and the three-time MVP was happy with his progress.

“I haven’t thrown in a while, so it was nice to be able to feel like I was a pitcher,” Ohtani said. “I just kind of remembered those days when I used to have a lot of good memories as a pitcher.”

Ohtani’s public workout was watched by a substantial on-looking crowd from the stands, as well as some Mets players, despite it being hours before the game.

Although the Dodgers went onto lose 3-1 to the Mets – dropping their sixth game in the last nine – Ohtani maintained his good form with the bat, hitting his 18th home run of the season to keep him tied atop the 2025 leaderboard in HRs with Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber.

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