Inside Pepiot's turbulent journey to debut this season

This story was excerpted from Juan Toribio’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. With Toribio on vacation this week, MLB.com reporter/producer Sarah Wexler and MLB.com reporter Henry Palattella stepped in to write this latest Dodgers newsletter.

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A once-in-a-lifetime storm approaching Southern California turned into a whirlwind 24 hours for Ryan Pepiot.

With Hurricane Hilary forecasted to make landfall in Los Angeles last Sunday, Major League Baseball opted to move the series finale between the Marlins and Dodgers to Saturday as part of a split doubleheader. That enabled both teams to add a 27th man to their rosters. For the Dodgers, that was Pepiot, who entered the second inning of the day-half as the bulk pitcher in a bullpen game. He hurled five innings of one-run ball, striking out five while allowing three hits and a walk.

“I know that the team is on a nice hot streak,” Pepiot said, after the game. “So just being able to come in and be a part of this ballclub that's winning games, leading the division, is pretty special.”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to play out for Pepiot, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Dodgers’ No. 10 prospect. The 26-year-old right-hander, who debuted in 2022 with a 3.47 ERA in nine games (seven starts), pitched well enough in Spring Training to earn a spot in the season-opening rotation. However, a left oblique strain sustained in his final Cactus League tuneup thwarted those plans.

Oblique issues are tricky. Mild strains can sometimes heal in just a matter of days, while more severe injuries can take months to rebound from. The latter was the case for Pepiot, who didn’t make his first rehab start until July 14.

“The rehab process was long,” said Pepiot. “It took a lot longer than I hoped, anticipated. But it would just get better each day and then when I got back out there, [I’d] just get as comfortable as I can as quickly as possible.”

Triple-A Oklahoma City manager Travis Barbary gave Pepiot the news of his callup as he was preparing to pitch for OKC in Salt Lake City on Friday. At around 3:40 p.m. MT, Pepiot was informed that Dodgers director of team travel Scott Akasaki had gotten him bumped up to a flight leaving at 5:15 p.m. Pepiot quickly showered, returned to his hotel and threw all of his items into his luggage before rushing off to the airport and taking off for Los Angeles. 

Saturday’s performance went a long way toward helping Pepiot’s case to fill the vacancy left in the rotation by Tony Gonsolin’s likely season-ending injury. He got another turn on Thursday in Cleveland, throwing four innings of one-run ball, striking out six while allowing three hits and earning his first win of the year.

As for what comes next, well, after all he’s been through this year, Pepiot is prepared for whatever is asked of him. 

“Wherever I throw, wherever they tell me to go, I'll be ready for it,” said Pepiot.