HOUSTON — The focus on Shohei Ohtani on the mound is more than it ever has been before, especially on a night like Tuesday.
It has been a week since the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar last recorded a hit at the plate, as his worst slump in years has coincided with his reintroduction into full two-way play. It is almost impossible to avoid linking the two as more than just a coincidence, something manager Dave Roberts acknowledged Tuesday when he didn’t have Ohtani in the lineup for the third time in his last four pitching starts.
Ohtani isn’t hitting. But he doesn’t think it’s because he’s pitching.
“I don’t think so, personally, that pitching has been affecting my hitting,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “At the same time, (this slump) has been a little bit longer than my expectations, in terms of the hitting side of things.”
So Ohtani pitched and didn’t hit Tuesday. The Dodgers lost, 2-1, to the Houston Astros on a night when Ohtani — thanks to his own lack of production — could not help himself.
“If I was hitting well, I’m sure the team would want me to pitch and hit as well,” Ohtani said. “But I understand, in a situation where (they’re saying), ‘Hey, just focus on pitching, turn the page on the hitting.’ I understand that the team might think like that.”
Ohtani is not the best hitter on the planet right now, hitless now over his last 17 at-bats and dealing with what Roberts called “a little bit of fallback” as his pitching has ramped up. So they took four at-bats off his plate for the day. He entered his start as perhaps the best pitcher going and continues to break new ground for himself.
Ohtani, the pitcher, allowed the first two home runs of his season but threw seven innings for the first time in three years to add to his sterling start of the season on the mound. The Dodgers lineup, sans the slumping Ohtani, snapped an 11-inning scoreless streak in the eighth inning to avoid getting shut out by an Astros team that has baseball’s highest ERA.
The organization has been clear about playing the long game with Ohtani, trying to strike a balance on his two-way play while ensuring he can make every rotation start. The hope is that treating days such as Tuesday as a half-day of sorts will help him remain productive and healthy.
The reality right now is Ohtani’s bat is in a prolonged lull (with eight hits in his last 44 at-bats and one home run since April 12), which coincides with the worst stretch of the season for this star-studded lineup. Over his last three starts, the club hasn’t scored a run with Ohtani on the mound
“We, as an offense, need to find ways to score runs for him,” Miguel Rojas said. “So it’s not because he’s not in the lineup that we’re not scoring runs. He’s just focusing on pitching on those days. It’s really hard to do what he’s doing.”
It’s hard to argue against the value he’s still giving the Dodgers on the mound on nights like Tuesday. The list of pitchers to come off a second major elbow surgery and be themselves is slim.
Now, Ohtani looks like he might be even better.
He did not allow a home run to the first 122 batters he faced this season before Houston’s Christian Walker turned around an elevated fastball and drove it to the train tracks above Daikin Park to lead off the second inning. Four batters later, Braden Shewmake became the second batter to take Ohtani deep all year, lifting a ball to left field that the Crawford Boxes swallowed a mere 337 feet from home plate.
Those were the only demerits of the night for Ohtani.
When Houston did rally another time in the fifth, Ohtani got out of it by punching out a future Hall of Famer, Jose Altuve. He reared back for consecutive 101 mph fastballs with two strikes that Altuve fouled off, then got Altuve to wave at a sweeper that wound up in the left-handed batter’s box.
Shohei Ohtani made Altuve look SILLY to get out of the jam 🤮 pic.twitter.com/CxFAk5Z74u
— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) May 6, 2026
His 0.97 ERA through 37 innings leads the majors. For another night, it was a chance for Ohtani to show his value even when he’s not hitting.
The Dodgers are not worried that Ohtani will figure things out at the plate. But his offensive slump has raised familiar questions around the four-time MVP. How much is his pitching affecting his hitting? Which is more valuable to the Dodgers, his arm or his bat? What does the best balance of all of this look like?
“I try not to get too far in the weeds on that,” Roberts said. “Because it’s moot. He’s gonna do both. He’s one of our best pitchers. He’s one of our best hitters. So I don’t spend too much time on it. It’s a good exercise for others. But not for me.”
There is logic behind some of Ohtani’s struggles.
This is his first time hitting and pitching in a full season since 2023; it is fair to wonder whether he has hit a wall of sorts as he gets used to things again. Ohtani could be dealing with some fatigue. His average bat speed is down a whole tick, from 75.8 mph in 2025 to 74.8 mph, per Baseball Savant, which lends some credence to that theory.
“He’s just missing pitches that he should hit,” Roberts said. “He’s not squaring them up. … I just think (he’s) getting them off the end (of the bat), getting beat on fastballs, things like that, (that) when he’s right just doesn’t happen.”
Ohtani has posited that some of his woes are because of his posture at the plate. Tuesday, he suspected something might be off with his bat path, causing him to miss pitches he usually does damage on.
“I’m going to try to figure that out,” Ohtani said.
He spent some of Monday doing something he hardly does — taking batting practice on the field — to try to correct it.
It does not help Ohtani that his two-way duties mean he simply has less bandwidth than before to correct what is wrong with his swing. That means the Dodgers will need to stay flexible with how they manage his time. Ohtani was supposed to hit in Tuesday’s game before Roberts watched him go 0-for-3 Monday night. His continued struggles caused Roberts to change course.
The manager left the door open for Ohtani to take some days off on the days after he pitches. The Dodgers have already tried to line up some of his starts for the days preceding scheduled off days, knowing how much of a toll he can feel the day after he’s on the mound.
“Everything is on the table,” Roberts said. “It’s certainly up for consideration. But again, I don’t know what the right answer is, outside of not playing him. Because we’re better when he’s in the lineup. He’s still a presence. There’s no pitcher out there that would not prefer to have him not in the lineup.”
