By the bottom of the 10th inning, Wednesday night’s game had already become a nightmare for the Dodgers.
Then, in one troublesome at-bat from Shohei Ohtani, it all got significantly more alarming.
At the end of an 0-for-4 performance that included his first four-strikeout game this year, Ohtani showed obvious discomfort with his right arm during his final trip to the plate –– the same arm in which he has been battling a biceps issue for much of the season.
It was concerning enough that, following the team’s 8-6 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals, manager Dave Roberts sounded uncertain about Ohtani’s availability for Thursday, and perhaps even beyond that.
“I’m going to talk to him tomorrow and really try to figure it out,” Roberts said. “Get with Thomas [Albert, head athletic trainer] and figure out where he’s at physically.”
Later, when asked if that meant potentially giving Ohtani just one day off, or a potentially longer spell out of the lineup or on the injured list, Roberts couldn’t offer more than a foreboding lack of clarity.
“It won’t be an IL –– unless it is,” he said. “It’s very unlikely. But I do think that I’m going to have a conversation. We’ll decide after I talk to him what’s the extent of it.”
Ever since June, Ohtani has been playing through both a biceps issue and a lingering left knee injury. While it has sidelined him from pitching, both he and the Dodgers have been adamant that it hasn’t affected his form at the plate.
But then came Wednesday, when Ohtani extended a recent 6-for-46 slump (albeit while drawing a walk and getting hit by a pitch) and looked clearly compromised offensively.
The most obvious signs came during his at-bat in the 10th, when he shook his arm and grimaced after each of his swings.
“I saw the same thing that everyone saw,” Roberts said. “I saw the shaking of the arm. I saw the wincing. Clearly, the swings aren’t who he is. Obviously there’s some compensation. So I’m going to talk to him and then I’ll make a decision tomorrow about his availability.”
Ohtani’s health had already been front of mind lately, after his expected return to the mound last Sunday was scuttled following a bullpen session in which he still didn’t feel 100%.
On Tuesday, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the team still planned to continue Ohtani’s pitching progression –– even though his chances of getting built back up for full-length starts in time for the playoffs were all but dashed by his latest pitching setback.
Before Wednesday’s game, however, Roberts offered a more ominous perspective on the status of his two-way star (who has repeatedly declined speaking to the media since his last press availability during a series in Colorado two weeks ago).
“Everything that he’s told me and the training staff [is that] he feels good,” Roberts said.
“But if you’re not 100%, there’s possibly some bleed-in to the performance offensively,” Roberts also later added.
That much was evident by the end of Wednesday’s performance, in which Ohtani’s continued struggles contributed to the Dodgers’ latest maddening defeat.
As a team, they squandered a late three-run lead, went 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position while stranding 13 men on base, and fell out of a top-two National League playoff seed by dropping their sixth game out of the last eight.
“We just got to perform and execute and win baseball games,” Roberts said. “That’s just the bottom line.”
Having a fully effective Ohtani will be critical to those efforts.
But, Roberts acknowledged, the 32-year-old has looked increasingly off physically over the last couple of weeks.
“Tonight,” Roberts said, “was kind of the tip of the iceberg.”
Roberts said he knows Ohtani “definitely doesn’t want” to take a day –– or more –– out of the lineup. At the same time, though, Roberts noted that “if he’s feeling the way that visibly looks, then [it’s] really not helping anyone,” especially with the start of the playoffs now just a month away.
“You can see the swing wasn’t the swing that we’re used to seeing, so he was not close to optimal tonight,” Roberts said. “So, again, what is going to get him close to being able to perform at the level that you know he expects? That’s kind of the question. And time off obviously seems logical, so I’m not blind to that.”
How much time off the Dodgers could consider giving Ohtani is where Roberts was careful to make no commitments.
“Is a day or two, or I mean, shoot, even 10 days [on the injured list], is that going to help get him to be 100%? Don’t know the answer,” Roberts said. “But I think where we’re at, he’s just going to have to find a way to make do and do the best he can.”
Roberts did voice some optimism about Ohtani’s ability to bounce back before the playoffs, feeling confident that there’s still “plenty of time to make whatever decision we make and to come out of it and have him come out of it in a better spot.”
For now, though, what that means for his short-term availability as a hitter –– let alone his chances of returning to the mound again this year –– has suddenly been cast under a renewed cloud of doubt.
“For me, it’s just more of really trying to get to the heart of it, the core of it, and be honest and see how he really feels,” Roberts said. “I’ve got my own thoughts, but I want to have that conversation.”
