Shohei Ohtani walked out of the 2026 National League Championship Series with a blunt assessment of what Milwaukee did to him.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers were swept by the Brewers, Ohtani said the matchup revealed flaws in his game and gave Milwaukee full credit for taking advantage.
"The Brewers were overall strong and a very good team, and it really exposed some of the parts of me as a player, and got to give some credit to that," Ohtani said through his interpreter.
That was a far different tone from the Dodgers’ 2025 run against Milwaukee, when Los Angeles controlled the series and swept the Brewers in four games. This time, the script flipped completely. Milwaukee entered the 2026 NLCS saying the rematch would look different, and it did - the Brewers turned the tables and swept the back-to-back champions in convincing fashion.
Ohtani’s own production matched the Dodgers’ collapse. He hit .230 in the NLCS, with his only real damage coming in Game 4, when he launched a three-run homer. Outside of that swing, there was little impact.
The bigger picture was even rougher. Over eight postseason games, Ohtani batted .192 with one home run, three RBIs and an OPS of .631, while striking out 10 times in 26 at-bats.
It was a disappointing finish for the four-time MVP, and the source of that downturn was clear throughout the run. Ohtani dealt with left knee irritation and right biceps tightness, with the knee issue flaring in late June and the biceps problem surfacing repeatedly during the season.
His offense started slipping around mid-August and never really came back. He kept playing through the injuries until he landed on the injured list in September, and the Dodgers hoped the two weeks off would get him closer to normal.
It didn’t happen. He never returned to average form, and the drop-off showed up again in October.
Asked about his health after the loss, Ohtani was unsure whether surgery will be part of his offseason plan.
“Hard to tell at this point,” he said. “It’s something that’s going to be analyzed, discussed over the offseason, and [we’ll] see if it’s a viable thing to do.”
One thing he did make plain: he expects to keep playing both ways in 2027.
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