Shohei Ohtani is back in the Dodgers lineup, but the biggest news around him Monday was what won’t be happening next: pitching.
After being shut down on the mound since July 3, Ohtani said he is “most likely” done pitching for the year and will shift his attention to offense.
When asked Monday if he’d pitch again this season, he said, through his interpreter (via MLB.com), "most likely, no. I'm going to be focusing on hitting moving forward."
Ohtani has been working through a knee injury and then a biceps injury, and those issues have kept him off the mound while also affecting him at the plate. He had already missed the previous four games before Monday because of those lingering injuries and neck soreness.
"I'm confident that my overall performance should be better moving forward," Ohtani said. "I think the thing that I was more focused on was making sure that the pitching wouldn't cause the most worst scenario, which was for me to not be able to play at all."
He returned Monday night as the designated hitter and went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts and a walk. That continued a rough stretch at the plate. Since blasting three home runs in two games at Coors Field on Aug. 17-18, he has hit .122/.295/.184 over his last 13 games.
If his season on the mound is indeed finished, Ohtani will close with an 8-2 record, a 1.79 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP and 95 strikeouts in 85 ⅔ innings, along with 3.0 WAR. At the plate, he’s sitting at .277/.380/.522 with a 148 OPS+, plus 25 doubles, four triples, 30 home runs, 80 RBI, 89 runs, 11 steals and 3.5 WAR.
The MVP race, meanwhile, has swung away from the player who opened the year as the overwhelming favorite. Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is now listed at -20000 at DraftKings, and if that holds, it would mean Ohtani will not win MVP for the first time in a Dodgers season.
Even so, the Dodgers are still positioned for a run at a third straight World Series title, and Ohtani remains central to that push.
Without him in the rotation, Los Angeles still heads into October with a powerful staff led by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tarik Skubal, along with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow.
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Shohei Ohtanis place in the Dodgers day-to-day plans has shifted in a significant way, with the two-way star now set to stay in the lineup as a designated hitter rather than return to the mound. He has not pitched since July 3, and both Dave Roberts and Ohtani have made clear that the focus moving forward is on keeping him in the role that has made him one of the sports most dangerous hitters.
The decision was reached together, with health and team needs driving the conversation. For the Dodgers, it simplifies a player usage puzzle that has hovered over the roster all season, even as it leaves open the bigger question of whether Ohtanis pitching days in Los Angeles are truly on hold, or something more permanent. [Read more 🡒]