It’s time to stop pushing this.
Put the bullpen sessions on hold.
Skip the simulated games, too.
Shohei Ohtani’s sore left knee and tender right biceps are sending him a clear message, and at this point, the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar needs to pay attention.
The idea of Ohtani pitching again this season has to be set aside.
Ohtani returning to the mound only makes sense if he can be a difference-maker as a pitcher, and what are the chances of that happening now that he’s been scratched from his tentatively scheduled one-inning start on Sunday in Detroit?
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As it was, Ohtani already was in a time crunch to prepare himself to be a full-fledged starter by October, manager Dave Roberts admitting that building him up to make a five-inning start in the playoffs would be “aggressive.”
Ohtani is more than a designated hitter, more than a pitcher, and even more than a two-way player.
He’s a game-changer, and the only place in which he can be that for the Dodgers in October is in the batter’s box.
In that case, what’s the point of him pitching, other than that he wants to?
The Dodgers traded for Tarik Skubal so they wouldn’t have to count on Ohtani to pitch, and now that Skubal is here, they might as well take advantage of that and focus Ohtani’s attention to the area in which he could help them most.
Which is on offense.
With Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow as their other starting pitching options, the Dodgers still have a championship-caliber rotation without Ohtani.
What they don’t have at the moment is a World Series offense.
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“I gotta think about what I can do to spur this offense,” Roberts told reporters in Detroit. “I don’t know right now as I sit here. These are our guys that have performed. I believe in them. But I don’t know the answer, as far as making changes and things like that, whether it’s lineup construction.”
The simplest solution would be to get Ohtani back on track.
The Dodgers don’t score when he’s not hitting, a point reinforced on their current roadtrip. With Ohtani batting just .182 on their two-city tour, they have scored a combined 11 runs in five games, of which they have won only one.
“Obviously, where we’re at right now with the pitching, the starting pitching certainly being a strength, his value offensively is hugely important, and so we can’t compromise that in any fashion,” Roberts said. “So, if throwing potentially cuts into that, that’s not worth the squeeze.”
But the Dodgers are extremely mindful of what Ohtani wants, which is understandable considering his oversized economic impact on the franchise. That could explain why Roberts downplayed the degree to which Ohtani’s pregame work as a pitcher was responsible for his offensive downturn.
“Honestly,” Roberts said, “I just think that for me, I think the pitch selection hasn’t been good.”
Roberts could be right.
But what if he’s not?
Ohtani has acknowledged that his knee problems have limited his speed on the basepaths, making it harder for him to properly judge whether he can stretch a single into a double or a double into a triple.
Is it really worth jeopardizing the offensive upside of Ohtani in exchange for having him available to pitch an inning or two as an opener once every postseason series?
Coincidentally or not, Ohtani stopped hitting when he started ramping up as a pitcher. He threw his first bullpen session in three weeks on Aug. 14, and from that point on, he’s batting just .214 with three homers in 14 games.
Compare that to the 31 games that Ohtani played between that bullpen session and his last start as a pitcher. In that period, he batted .301 and homered nine times.
The story of Ohtani’s career is one of defiance. Ohtani became a two-way player in the Japanese league when the consensus was that it was impractical. He continued to play both ways in the major leagues when others said it was impossible.
But Ohtani shouldn’t mistake the situation he is in now with the kind of skepticism he encountered in previous stages of his career. This isn’t about whether he’s capable of hitting and pitching at the same time — he can, and he will have a chance to resume pitching next season.
This is about doing what’s best for him and his team in the limited time that remains this season. This is about him looking at the Dodgers’ roster and figuring out what will be required of him in October and what won’t.