LOS ANGELES \u2014 Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sent a text message to Shohei Ohtani on Wednesday night informing him that he wasn\u2019t going to be in the lineup Thursday in the series finale against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n
Ohtani responded with a salute emoji, Roberts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, he wants to be in there,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not going to just put him in there because of the name on the back of his jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n
That could be a push-and-pull situation for the rest of the season, as Ohtani continues to manage lingering pain in his right biceps and left knee. He also sat out Friday\u2019s series opener against the Washington Nationals.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty surrounding Ohtani\u2019s health \u2014 even though Roberts said before the Dodgers\u2019 3-2 win Thursday that an injured list stint was \u201cunlikely\u201d \u2014 raises questions about the team\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to fully map out the Dodgers\u2019 rotation plans without knowing whether Ohtani will pitch again this season. And the offense won\u2019t be at its best until he has shaken his slump \u2014 Ohtani has just two hits in his last six games after hitting just .241 in August.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers\u2019 offense dipped back into the doldrums on Thursday \u2014 before Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez delivered a two-run walk-off double in the ninth to avoid the series sweep.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think great players always feel that their X percentage is better than the next person and they want to be available,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThere is a kind of trusting the player versus taking it out of their hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of practice with Clayton (Kershaw). And Shohei, I think it\u2019s just more of trying to weigh the downside and what potential harm that could do for him and the ballclub versus it\u2019s something that is what it is. That\u2019s just trying to get as much information as we can from the training staff and hear what Shohei has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani, who was not made available to speak to reporters Thursday, has not given an interview in more than two weeks. He declined requests for comment through a Dodgers spokesperson twice last weekend.<\/p>\n
Although Ohtani\u2019s left knee has been the biggest impediment in his return to pitching \u2014 his last pitching start was July 3, and his throwing program has stalled twice since receiving an injection to address swelling and soreness \u2014 his right biceps is now a problem.<\/p>\n
Ohtani reported that the area from his biceps to his neck was bothering him Wednesday night, Roberts said. That was why he kept shaking out his arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like an ebb-and-flow type thing,\u201d general manager Brandon Gomes said of Ohtani\u2019s biceps issue, which has flared at least two other times this season. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to recover in August and September, so it\u2019s like just being mindful of if he needs a day here and there, and having those conversations. He\u2019s just one of one, and you can\u2019t say, \u2018Well, this guy feels this, therefore Sho\u2019s going to be the same.\u2019 So we have to treat it as a unique case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tthe biceps and knee injuries have lingered for months. But Ohtani hasn\u2019t missed two games in a row all season, let alone landed on the IL.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just really hard to say, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re gonna knock something out in X amount of days,\u2019\u201d Gomes said. \u201cBut l think not having Shohei in the lineup for 10 days, or whatever it would be, is something that we would prefer not to do, and it really hasn\u2019t even been something that we\u2019ve discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gomes also pushed back on the assumption that Ohtani\u2019s struggles at the plate are connected to his physical ailments, even though the two have coincided.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think there\u2019s also just ebbs and flows of the season, and what to attribute things to and what not to is just too hard to say,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had any indication that he\u2019s not feeling good enough physically to go out and play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think he\u2019s a victim of his own greatness, of \u2026 if Shohei struggles for a bit and then it\u2019s up in arms. Like I said, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything overly concerning at this point. We\u2019ll continue to monitor and have conversations and see how he feels.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dodgers have put off a decision regarding whether Ohtani should pitch again this season. But Roberts said this latest development would be \u201cpart of the math.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Gomes: \u201cOnce again, we\u2019ve got to see how he continues to feel. At some point, if it\u2019s a, \u2018Hey, the upside outweighs the downside,\u2019 then we shut it down. Doc has said this, we\u2019ll continue to say it: We\u2019re not going to \u2026 compromise (his offensive performance). But right now, not feeling that that\u2019s necessarily a thing. We just don\u2019t have enough information to feel strongly on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skubal started Thursday, and held the Cardinals (70-71) to two runs. But he battled traffic all night, as he gave up 10 hits. Skubal exited with two outs in the sixth inning, his pitch count already up to 102.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sent a text message to Shohei Ohtani on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":["post-797209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-baseball","tag-dodgers","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117218067318552820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797209","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=797209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}