{"id":693443,"date":"2026-05-08T10:12:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/693443\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T10:12:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:12:24","slug":"inside-the-mechanics-shohei-ohtani-is-working-on-to-end-his-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/693443\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the mechanics Shohei Ohtani is working on to end his slump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HOUSTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Shohei Ohtani<\/a> was early on the 82-mph sweeper that Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. threw to him in a 2-2 count.<\/p>\n

It was to almost the same spot as the much harder cutter Ohtani had just fouled off. But Ohtani, starting his swing on time for the fastball, recognized the sweeper early enough to stop this momentum, throw his hands to the ball, and hit a low line drive up the right-field line for a double.<\/p>\n

That hit in the third inning of the Dodgers\u2019 12-2 blowout win Wednesday<\/a> was his first in over a week. He\u2019d gone 18 straight at-bats without a hit. Watching Ohtani grind through the slump, manager Dave Roberts<\/a> even decided to give Ohtani the day off from hitting when he took the mound Tuesday.<\/a><\/p>\n

Then on Wednesday \u2014 whether it was the result of that break, or on-field batting practice two days before, or a culmination of work, or some combination of the three \u2014 Ohtani logged two hits and a walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was a good day for Shohei,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

So, what was going wrong, and how is Ohtani going about trying to make sure his good day becomes the start of an offensive turnaround?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a little bit longer than my expectation,\u201d Ohtani said of his slump Tuesday through interpreter Will Ireton. \u201cI\u2019ve been getting on base, which is a good thing. I just want to make sure that the quality of balls in play are better. And it\u2019s not ideal that I\u2019m trying to find that in the game, but I just have to continue to do what I\u2019m supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, this has been a slow offensive start for Ohtani \u2014 during which he also earned National League Pitcher of the Month honors for March and April. After setting the bar uber-high with an OPS over 1.000 in each of the last three seasons, his .831 OPS so far this year has been a noticeable dropoff.<\/p>\n

Though Ohtani\u2019s bat briefly heated up last homestand, when he recorded two three-hit games in a row, he was out of the batting order the next day because he was pitching on just five days\u2019 rest.<\/a> And then he sunk back into a slump.<\/p>\n

As Ohtani pointed out then, slow starts aren\u2019t altogether unusual for him. Over the course of his career, May has been his worst offensive month (.899 OPS).<\/p>\n

As Ohtani worked through this recent offensive lull, he and the Dodgers<\/a> hitting coaches looked into his stance \u2014 making sure he wasn\u2019t setting up too open or closed \u2014 and the early loading motion in his swing, or the \u201cgather.\u201d Cutting the gather short can have a \u201cdomino effect,\u201d as Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates explained it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s aware of it all,\u201d Bates said Monday, after Ohtani took early batting practice on the field. \u201cJust kind of just feeling through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, after Ohtani the pitcher held the Astros to two runs in seven innings, he said he\u2019d identified his bat path as the main mechanical issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually the posture is what\u2019s really important for me,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve come to a conclusion that it\u2019s not [the problem right now], and there\u2019s a few things that I feel that are in play, in terms of why my bat path isn\u2019t the right direction. So I\u2019m going to try to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Statcast\u2019s bat tracking, Ohtani\u2019s swing path has been slightly steeper this season (38-degree tilt), compared to last (37 degrees) or the year before (35 degrees). His bat speed is also a tick down from last year \u2014 going from 75.8 to 74.8 mph \u2014 although it\u2019s unclear whether that\u2019s a cause of his struggles or a symptom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could probably play into the fact that he\u2019s getting beat on some pitches,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut if you say that [his bat speed is down], which people have talked about that, then is that a sign of a little bit of fatigue in there? Which in turn is why we feel like, give him a day off here and there, and hopefully we can reset him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Ohtani acknowledged that a two-way workload while also trying to fix his swing is a balancing act, he came close to bristling when asked if he was more valuable to the team just focusing on hitting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the team asks me to do that, sure, I\u2019ll always do what the team asks me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that the reason why I\u2019m not hitting is because I\u2019m pitching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question was, in essence, hypothetical. The team is not going to ask Ohtani to give up his two-way status, in either direction. The four-time MVP\u2019s track record suggests that he\u2019ll be making massive contributions from both the mound and batter\u2019s box this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to figure it out,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cIs he going to go 50-50? No. But he is still going to be a very, very productive offensive player. We do know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s second hit Wednesday showed a slightly different side of his swing. He stayed inside a cutter and shot it into shallow left-center field for an RBI single.<\/p>\n

Again, it wasn\u2019t all that flashy. But it didn\u2019t have to be for Wednesday to qualify as a good day at the plate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Shohei Ohtani was early on the 82-mph sweeper that Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. threw to him in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,2229,5,4357,190,39,3930,139,54,3211,4,1258,87447,14762,1602,12668,87448,9023,235,5346,1319],"class_list":["post-693443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-astros","tag-ball","tag-baseball","tag-bat","tag-day","tag-dodgers","tag-hit","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-mlb","tag-ohtani","tag-on-field-batting-practice","tag-op","tag-roberts","tag-slump","tag-slump-tuesday","tag-swing","tag-team","tag-third-inning","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116538424966842619","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693443","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=693443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}