The Los Angeles Dodgers won the NLDS on Wednesday night, needing four games to defeat the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five series.
That series victory, which the Dodgers hope is the start of their three-peat World Series journey in this postseason, masked something, though. Shohei Ohtani still isn’t right.
The Dodgers have more or less acknowledged this already. After years of not moving him around the batting lineup, they’re moving him around the batting lineup.
And sure, the Dodgers might be so super-powered that it doesn’t even matter if they get Ohtani’s best. In some ways, it feels like they’re unbeatable.
But Ohtani is one of one for a reason. There’s no baseball player on the planet. Even when he’s not able to pitch, at least in the past, his contributions at the plate and on the bases have been otherworldly.
At the moment, though, Ohtani is very human.
What’s Wrong With Shohei Ohtani?
In an injury-plagued season, Ohtani simply appears to still be injured.
The Dodgers aren’t going to go too in-depth on any such speculation, but that doesn’t stop onlookers from feeling like that has to be the case.
The Ringer’s Anthony Dabbundo wrote on X: “It probably won’t matter because dodgers run prevention machine goes brrrr, but Shohei Ohtani hasn’t had a good at bat in any of the first four NLDS games and doesn’t seem healthy.”
That about sums it up. Something just doesn’t seem right with Ohtani.
Ohtani is 2-for-13 so far in the postseason, and that extends to a cold finish to the regular season for him.
For what it’s worth, Ohtani doesn’t yet have an extra-base hit in the small sample of the NLDS.
He went 0-for-3 with a walk and a run in the clinching Game 4.
Even dating back to the regular season, Ohtani is 10 for his last 60 (.167 average) with no home runs in that span.
Dodgers Dilemma
With almost any other hitter on the planet, you’d take an honest look at how he was feeling and consider a change.
It almost feels like Ohtani is above that. Sure, the Dodgers don’t want to hurt him worse, but if he believes he can be in the lineup, L.A. doesn’t want to tell him no.
It puts the Dodgers in tough spots, though. They have to make judgments on how his health might impact his play, except they aren’t inside his body to really know how he’s doing.
And truly, the Dodgers could win it all without Ohtani. So if he’s going to play, he needs to be more helpful than hurtful, because they have other options.
Los Angeles might not be able to solve this. There isn’t a ton of time.
But one way or the other, Ohtani is going to impact what happens in these playoffs. He always does. This year, it just might look a little different.
Dodgers Keep Pushing Off Shohei Ohtani Problem