The Los Angeles Dodgers can look forward to opening the 2025 season on track to repeat as World Series champions.

The team retained its core of future Hall of Fame sluggers, plus it added star pitchers like Blake Snell, Tanner Scott and Roki Sasaki. Those additions might have seemed superfluous this winter, but the Dodgers’ depth was seriously tested in the team’s 2024 playoff run.

“Injuries, of course, were always a central theme in the Dodgers’ 2024 season,” Jack Harris wrote for The Los Angeles Times. “The arduous regular season, which began a week early in South Korea and concluded with a division race that wasn’t settled until the last week of September, rarely gave the lineup a chance to catch its breath.”

The Dodgers saw several star players go down with season-ending injuries, including blockbuster acquisition Tyler Glasnow and franchise icon Clayton Kershaw. But an even bigger injury blow was narrowly avoided, as two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani partially dislocated his shoulder and tore his left labrum while sliding into second base during the World Series.

Many other players would have required a significant recovery period, but Ohtani’s quick recovery startled teammate Freddie Freeman.

“When you pop your shoulder out like he did, you usually can’t raise your arm above your head,” Freeman said, per Harris. “And I watched him walk in on workout day in New York and raise his arm completely over his head.”

Freeman shared his shocked response to the news that Ohtani was relatively unscathed after that injury.

“I had to touch him before Game 3 to make sure he was real,” Freeman told Harris with a laugh. “I was like, ‘How is this man doing this?’”

As the Dodgers look to repeat as World Series champions in 2025, they can hope for better injury luck. But it seems that Ohtani, a unicorn in so many ways, is able to withstand some serious wear and tear in pursuit of a title.