{"id":801502,"date":"2026-09-10T14:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/801502\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:27:14","slug":"a-sudden-il-stint-for-shohei-ohtani-and-an-unusual-double-a-call-up-to-fill-his-spot-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/801502\/","title":{"rendered":"A sudden IL stint for Shohei Ohtani, and an unusual Double-A call-up to fill his spot | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Shohei Ohtani<\/a> is headed to the 15-day injured list with right arm discomfort, leaving the streaking Los Angeles Dodgers without the four-time MVP as they close in on their 13th NL West title in 14 years.<\/p>\n

Manager Dave Roberts announced the move late Wednesday, saying that, \u201cin talking to Shohei, the doctors, the training staff, it\u2019s the right thing to do. We tried to kick the can as much as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani isn’t expected back until the Dodgers host the San Diego Padres in a three-game set beginning Sept. 22. He won’t travel on the team’s seven-game East Coast trip starting Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that if the playoffs were tomorrow, he’d be in the lineup,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI’m pretty confident that he’ll be ready to go on that 15th day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani was out of the lineup for the sixth time in seven games on Wednesday night, when the Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds 14-1<\/a> to complete a sweep and win their seventh in a row.<\/p>\n

Ohtani has been managing lingering soreness in his right biceps and left knee for weeks now, but he waited until after Tuesday night’s game to tell the training staff he felt something in his arm after playing Monday.<\/p>\n

“There was a swing Monday that he didn\u2019t feel great on, hasn\u2019t totally recovered from Monday,\u201d Roberts said before the game.<\/p>\n

While the Dodgers are back East, Ohtani will remain in Los Angeles and resume hitting after a two- or three-day rest to \u201ccalm his arm down,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get his body feeling well and then slowly ramp back up because now we do have time,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

In an unprecedented move, the Dodgers will call up Josue De Paula from Double-A Tulsa to fill Ohtani’s roster spot. He’ll make his major league debut Friday at Miami as the designated hitter.<\/p>\n

The team hasn’t called up a position player directly from Double-A since Andrew Friedman took over as president of baseball operations in 2015, but Roberts is confident their 21-year-old top prospect from the Dominican Republic can handle the pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that our player development group is very confident in his ability to conduct an at-bat. You could argue that the talent in Double-A is similar to Triple-A as far as pure arms and arm talent,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWe’ve seen him in camp for two or three years. He doesn’t run from velocity. He controls the strike zone. This is just a good opportunity for him to kind of cut his teeth in the big leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ohtani returns, he would have six games and some live batting sessions to prepare before the postseason begins and the Dodgers open their bid for a third consecutive World Series championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s certainly not ideal,\u201d Roberts admitted. \u201cThe most important thing is him being as healthy as possible, not compromising his swing, and kind of bet on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani took swings in the batting cage on Tuesday night, when he was available to pinch-hit.<\/p>\n

Roberts confirmed the team has stressed to Ohtani the need for him to speak up immediately about any physical issues he may have.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern is that after four days (off) and then to take four at-bats and to feel something in an at-bat where we can\u2019t keep going forward, I think that\u2019s disappointing,\u201d Roberts said before the game.<\/p>\n

Roberts expressed some regret about not putting Ohtani on the IL last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to go back and put him on the IL,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I did feel at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient. He was agreeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also out of the lineup Wednesday was first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose right knee has been bothering him. He made a rare appearance as the designated hitter on Tuesday, going 0 for 2 with a strikeout in a 3-2 victory<\/a> over the Cincinnati Reds.<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Shohei Ohtani is headed to the 15-day injured list with right arm discomfort, leaving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,2125,4,256,8080,52883,185],"class_list":["post-801502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-minor-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-mlb-world-series","tag-shohei-ohtani-dodgers","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117247216437233561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801502","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=801502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}