{"id":690884,"date":"2026-05-05T11:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/690884\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:03:16","slug":"dodgers-subtle-move-signals-something-is-wrong-with-shohei-ohtani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/690884\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers subtle move signals something is wrong with Shohei Ohtani"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dodgers subtle move signals something is wrong with Shohei Ohtani<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t benefit the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> in any way to come out and say it.<\/p>\n

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But right now, at least relative to the past, something must be a bit wrong with Shohei Ohtani<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ohtani again on Tuesday will just pitch and not hit, and while that would be normal for anyone else in baseball, it isn’t normal for him.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Ohtani has been in the batting order on the days he pitches. It’s two-way mastery to the fullest extent.<\/p>\n

But this season, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has taken Ohtani’s bat out of the lineup more often than not when he starts on the mound.<\/p>\n

Maybe the most concerning part here is that Roberts originally planned on Ohtani hitting Tuesday. Only after his Monday night showing did Roberts change his mind.<\/p>\n

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Ohtani is 0-for-17 at the plate in his last five games, so that’s not an ideal selling point.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Tyler Rogers is 51 degrees different than every other pitcher in MLB<\/a><\/p>\n

He also didn’t have encouraging body language on Monday, according to Bill Blunkett of the Orange County Register.<\/p>\n

Ohtani is still plenty valuable even if he does only one of his two-way skills at a time, but it’s definitely a bit disappointing.<\/p>\n

Part of the mystique of Ohtani is that he does it all. He’s one of the best pitchers and best hitters in the sport, all in one.<\/p>\n

Lately, though, the Dodgers have shied away from keeping everything on Ohtani’s plate at once. And no matter what they say, that’s not a great sign.<\/p>\n

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More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers subtle move signals something is wrong with Shohei Ohtani originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,33248,1560,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4,468,948],"class_list":["post-690884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-baseball","tag-bill-plunkett","tag-dave-roberts","tag-dodgers","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mlb","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-tyler-rogers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116521638519645811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}