LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers kicked the can too far down the road with Shohei Ohtani, and will now get a compromised version of their four-time MVP whenever he returns from the injured list.
His knee, biceps and neck issues have dragged on long enough that a stint on the IL is finally coming, manager Dave Roberts said, months after Ohtani first noted some discomfort. It was time.
“The smart thing, probably, to do is to just put him on the IL,” Roberts said.
This is now how any of this was supposed to play out for the reigning back-to-back World Series champions.
The organization has fielded questions for months about whether it would make sense to shut Ohtani down entirely. Now it’s no longer a choice. Roberts acknowledged Wednesday that Ohtani will not be 100 percent as a hitter when he’s back.
Should the Dodgers have handled this differently?
“Anyone can do that, and say, ‘What could you have done better or different?’” Roberts said this week. “Absolutely. That’s something going forward we’re gonna look at, absolutely. But, it’s certainly not a blame game thing. It’s learning from what happened and getting better.”
Is Shohei Ohtani really a ‘sit’ in fantasy?
The Dodgers have been keen to trust Ohtani’s word about how he’s feeling. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman acknowledged at the start of the season that their first year of full two-way Ohtani (and Ohtani’s first full two-way season since 2023) would bring “unprecedented” challenges. The ensuing months have been a stress test on how the organization could handle it.
Ohtani last pitched on July 3, having spent the prior month pitching through discomfort in his left knee. That knee, which required a “lubricant” injection during the All-Star break, did not hold up as the Dodgers tried ramping him up on two occasions as a pitcher in the second half. Pitching is now clearly off the table. His right biceps caused discomfort off and on throughout that period as a hitter, and the pain traveled up toward his neck area.
Still, Ohtani never went on the IL until now. It took until last week for the team to sit Ohtani for an extended period; he missed four games, his longest time out of the lineup as a Dodger. Before this season, he’d only missed one game due to a physical ailment since signing with L.A., sitting on May 12, 2024, against the San Diego Padres with back tightness.
The Dodgers tried to bring back Ohtani on Monday against the Cincinnati Reds. He went hitless, and now has just six hits in his last 49 at-bats.
General manager Brandon Gomes claimed this week that Ohtani’s struggles were not tied to his health, which does not line up with how Ohtani’s swing has looked. In Monday’s game, Ohtani again showed signs of discomfort and told reporters that he is not 100 percent, and won’t be by year’s end.
He was also asked how important it was for him to communicate how he was feeling to the organization.
“It’s hard to say now with the season still going on,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s something that I’m going to reflect back on during the offseason. I’m just making sure that I’m focusing on the now and finishing strong.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts acknowledged the team may have been better served placing Ohtani on the IL last week. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
Ohtani did not communicate that he was feeling additional discomfort that night, Roberts said. The manager said he learned Ohtani “didn’t feel great” Tuesday night, after a game in which Ohtani was ready to hit off the bench if necessary.
Once again, it came down to communication between the two parties.
“We did (emphasize communication),” Roberts said Wednesday when that disconnect was pointed out. “That’s right. We did.”
The Dodgers, at the least, probably should have placed Ohtani on the injured list to begin with a week ago when they shut him down, Roberts acknowledged.
“I think if we look right now, here today, I would love to go back and put him on the IL,” Roberts said. “But I did feel at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient.”
As it turns out, it wasn’t. Ohtani is going to play a maximum of five regular season games if he returns from the IL in the minimum amount of times. Even then, it’s unclear what version of him the Dodgers would be getting.
What did this cost them? In terms of roster construction, probably not much. But rather than optimize Ohtani, they might be getting a lesser version of him this October.
More on the Dodgers, who have used Ohtani’s injury as a chance to make a splash:
1. If the Dodgers are going to be without Ohtani for a while, calling up Josue De Paula was the obvious choice. The only thing surprising about the move that is this front office has never called up a position player directly from Double A. De Paula’s glaring defensive weaknesses are what has kept him from the big leagues to this point — but are not a hurdle if he is expected to serve as the Dodgers’ designated hitter for the time being.
De Paula’s bat has felt big-league ready for quite some time. The Dodgers have raved about his confidence level. That’s what it took to pull the trigger on De Paula’s planned debut Friday.
“Our player development group is very confident in his ability to conduct an at-bat,” Roberts said. “You could argue that the talent in Double A is similar to Triple A, as far as pure arms and arm talent. I think that we’ve seen him in camp for two or three years. He doesn’t run from velocity. He controls the strike zone. And I think this is just a good opportunity for him to kind of cut his teeth in the big leagues.”
De Paula launched his 27th home run of the season on Wednesday and has a .948 OPS, finding a way to pull the ball in the air more this season at no cost to his supreme bat-to-ball skills. He also would have needed to be added to the 40-man roster this winter, which helped his case.
“He’s done a lot to earn the attention he’s getting now,” Dodgers special assistant Jason Heyward told The Athletic last month. “It’s also one of those things where you see guys sometimes not realize that, ‘Hey, you’re very close. You’re closer than you think to that next level and have an opportunity to start your career.’”
Freddie Freeman’s struggles at the plate have coincided with a bothersome knee. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
2. Freddie Freeman is also ailing thanks to a bothersome right knee that limited him to designated hitter duty on Tuesday and kept him out of the lineup entirely on Wednesday. An IL stint is “absolutely not” on the table for Freeman, Roberts said, but it’s no guarantee that he’s back in the lineup Friday against the Marlins, either.
Freeman’s offense has taken a hit; he has one hit in his last 18 at-bats and went hitless with three strikeouts as the DH on Wednesday. It’s unclear how long the knee has been an issue, but Freeman’s power production has essentially evaporated over the last two months, with just one home run over his last 53 games. He has just a .718 OPS over that stretch despite hitting .298.
“Freddie does a really good job of hitting against his front side, and then when you can’t do that with your front side, your right knee, then you’re compromised,” Roberts said. “I see there’s a lot more swing and miss the last few days. That’s just not who he is.”
3. Tarik Skubal has a compelling case to start Game 1 of a potential postseason series for a variety of reasons (including “we traded for you to be the guy”), but the National League Division Series format might dictate otherwise. The NL does not have the off day between Games 1 and 2 as was the case last season when the Dodgers met the Philadelphia Phillies, which means they have to be extra mindful of rest days for their starters.
There are five days between Games 1 and 5, which means the only way to have Yoshinobu Yamamoto available to pitch twice (following his usual once-per-week schedule) would be by having him start Game 1. Skubal has thrown on “regular” four days’ rest 25 times over the last three seasons, significantly more than Blake Snell (seven in 37 total starts) and Tyler Glasnow (three in 50) over that span. Skubal could start Game 2 and be available on four days’ rest for a Game 5.
The Dodgers even flipped Skubal and Yamamoto in the rotation this week, with Skubal going Tuesday and Yamamoto on Wednesday. There is still plenty of time to reconfigure things, Roberts said.
But it does line up. Skubal threw on regular rest on Tuesday and pitched into the eighth inning for the first time in seven starts as a Dodger. He has yet to provide a singular, dominant moment since arriving from Detroit, but still has a 2.93 ERA in L.A. There is still room to be better, Skubal urged.
“Sometimes I’m fighting myself, or I just haven’t really gotten to the rhythm of who I am on the mound yet,” Skubal said. “I don’t think I’ve thrown the ball as well as I know I’m capable of yet.”
Yamamoto, a day later, delivered his own gem, going seven innings and striking out 10 while only allowing a run on a solo homer to a red-hot Elly De La Cruz in Wednesday’s 14-1 win.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto ties his career high with his 10th strikeout 🔥 pic.twitter.com/blmOzvkcWX
— MLB (@MLB) September 10, 2026
4. The Dodgers weren’t all that worried about Will Smith offensively after he missed three months with an inflamed disc in his neck. That was the case even before he homered on Tuesday and added a double on Wednesday.
Smith’s swing is probably just a little off from where it could be when he’s at his best. But he can still be productive.
“Being comfortable being uncomfortable in the box is probably what makes Smitty the best,” hitting coach Aaron Bates told The Athletic this week. “He can stand up there and it feels absolutely horrible to him but he does what’s right to kind of fight through it. That’s an outlier.”
Smith had a .720 OPS when he went on the injured list in June, which would be the lowest mark of his career. He has been, in some ways, unlucky — which continued Wednesday night when he launched a hanging Rhett Lowder slider a projected 387 feet out to center field and Reds outfielder Carlos Jorge leapt at the wall to rob him of extra bases.
5. The Dodgers have operated without enough from their offense for a while. They have played 27 one-run games since the start of July, going 16-11. That’s all well and good, but it’s exposed a strain on every part of the operation. The oldest position player group in the majors has not given itself enough chances to exhale.
They could, though, in the fourth inning Wednesday, thanks to six runs against the Reds’ Lowder and Luis Mey. It was the Dodgers’ first inning of six runs or more since a 15-3 blowout win over the Padres on June 27.
This is simply a different offense when Teoscar Hernández (who drove in a pair with two hits Wednesday) and Mookie Betts (who added a two-run shot) are rolling, even without Ohtani.
“Obviously it’s one of those things where we know we’re a much better ballclub with Shohei in the lineup,” Roberts said. “But there is something to, he’s not in the lineup, so guys got to pick up the slack and focus a little bit more. I’ve seen that, top to bottom.”
6. Maybe the computer models were right about the Dodgers’ odds of a bye, after all. Remember when the Dodgers got swept in Atlanta and lost the tiebreaker against the Braves? They still exited that series with 83.6 percent odds at getting a top-2 seed, according to FanGraphs.
Now, after fattening up on a lighter part of their schedule and winning seven in a row against the St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals and Reds, those odds are 97.3 percent.
The Dodgers could be popping corks as soon as their upcoming road trip to Miami and Cincinnati. Their magic number for a 14th consecutive trip to the postseason is down to six.
