LOS ANGELES — When Shohei Ohtani returned to the starting lineup after four games off on Monday night, the Dodgers were hopeful that he had recovered to the point where he would not regress. That was not the case.
After Ohtani missed his second consecutive game on Wednesday night, manager Dave Roberts announced after the Dodgers’ 14-1 win over the Reds that he’d be placed on the injured list. Ohtani has been out of the starting lineup for six of the past seven games while managing lingering injuries to his left knee and right biceps. The Dodgers will be calling up top prospect Josue De Paula, who will join the team Friday in Miami.
The Dodgers initially believed that Ohtani came away from Monday — when he went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts — feeling good. He was out of the lineup again on Tuesday to ease him back, and he was expected to return on Wednesday.
But Tuesday night, Ohtani reported that his right biceps still did not feel great because of one of the swings he took Monday. The minimum-length IL stint for two-way players is 15 days.
“The concern is that after four days, and then to take four at-bats and to feel something in an at-bat where we can’t keep going forward,” Roberts said before Wednesday’s game, “I think that’s disappointing. … Obviously, it’s not ideal given that it would potentially be 15 days, but I still stand by whatever is best for him is best for us.”
The Dodgers can backdate Ohtani’s placement on the IL to Tuesday, which would make him eligible to return early in the final week of the regular season.
Had an Ohtani IL placement been backdated to last Thursday, his first game out of the lineup, he would be almost halfway through the stint. Hindsight is a benefit that the Dodgers did not have at that point in time.
“I think if we look right now, here today, I would love to go back and put him on the IL,” Roberts said. “But I did feel at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient. He was agreeable.”
The Dodgers are on a season-high seven-game winning streak, even without having Ohtani for six of those games.
Ohtani has dealt with health issues since June, including left-knee soreness that has been the primary reason that he has not pitched since July 3. A right biceps issue first affected him as a hitter, then went on to affect his pitching ramp-up.
The deterioration of Ohtani’s health and performance seemed to coincide with his buildup as a pitcher. Since he began a throwing program on Aug. 8, he is hitting .198 (19-for-96) with a .689 OPS and 34 strikeouts. Ohtani has not thrown since Aug. 28 and is expecting to be shut down from pitching for the year.
Overall this season, Ohtani has a .902 OPS with 30 homers. He has been working to get as close to feeling 100 percent as he can despite the lingering injuries, and he believes that his performance should improve going forward.
But Ohtani acknowledged that even with taking pitching off his plate, recovering physically is more difficult while he’s actively playing in games.
“Of course the best mode of recovery is to completely not play,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Monday. “But right now, I just want to make sure that I’m playing, playing well and just focusing on the now.”
The Dodgers do not expect Ohtani to get back to full health by the end of the season. Their goal is to get him feeling as good as he can in light of his ongoing physical concerns.
Even a limited Ohtani can be playable. The Dodgers saw that when he partially dislocated his left shoulder in Game 2 of the 2024 World Series, then appeared in the final three games. But there is a minimum threshold of improvement that he needs to make before getting back into games, and the Dodgers must find a way to get him there before the postseason.
“I think he’s managed being compromised with the shoulder injury before,” Roberts said. “The presence in the box, his desire to be out there, I just feel very confident that he’ll be back at some point. I don’t know if it’s Friday, I don’t know. We have to make a decision at some point.”