LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers kicked the can too far down the road with Shohei Ohtani and will now get a compromised version of their four-time most valuable player whenever he returns from the injured list.

His knee, biceps and neck problems have dragged on long enough that it was finally time for a stint on the injured list, manager Dave Roberts said, months after Ohtani first noted some discomfort.

“The smart thing, probably, to do is to just put him on the IL,” Roberts said.

This is not how any of this was supposed to play out for the reigning back-to-back World Series champions.

The organization had fielded questions for months about whether it would make sense to shut Ohtani down entirely. Now it is no longer a choice. Roberts acknowledged Wednesday that Ohtani will not be 100% as a hitter when he does come back.

Should the Dodgers have handled this differently?

“Anyone can do that, and say, ‘What could you have done better or different?’” Roberts said this week. “Absolutely. That’s something going forward we’re going to look at, absolutely. But it’s certainly not a blame game thing. It’s learning from what happened and getting better.”

The Dodgers have been keen to trust Ohtani’s word about how he is feeling. Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations, acknowledged at the start of the season that the team’s first year of the full two-way Ohtani (and Ohtani’s first full two-way season since 2023) would bring “unprecedented” challenges. The ensuing months have been a stress test on how the organization could handle it.

Ohtani Last Pitched in July

Ohtani last pitched July 3, having spent the prior month pitching through discomfort in his left knee. That knee, which required a “lubricant” injection during the All-Star break, did not hold up as the Dodgers tried ramping him up on two occasions as a pitcher in the second half. Pitching is now clearly off the table.

His right biceps caused discomfort off and on throughout that period while he was hitting, and the pain traveled up toward his neck area.

Still, Ohtani never went on the injured list until now. It took until last week for the team to sit Ohtani for an extended period; he missed four games, his longest time out of the lineup as a Dodger. Before this season, he had missed only one game with a physical ailment since signing with LA, sitting out with back tightness on May 12, 2024, against the San Diego Padres.

The Dodgers tried to bring back Ohtani on Monday against the Cincinnati Reds. He went hitless, leaving him with just six hits in his past 49 at-bats.

General manager Brandon Gomes claimed this week that Ohtani’s struggles were not tied to his health, which does not line up with how Ohtani’s swing has looked. In Monday’s game, Ohtani again showed signs of discomfort and told reporters that he was not 100% and will not be by year’s end.

He was also asked how important it was for him to communicate how he was feeling to the organization.

“It’s hard to say now with the season still going on,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, Will Ireton. “It’s something that I’m going to reflect back on during the offseason. I’m just making sure that I’m focusing on the now and finishing strong.”

Ohtani did not communicate that he was feeling additional discomfort that night, Roberts said. The manager said he learned that Ohtani “didn’t feel great” Tuesday night, after a game in which Ohtani was ready to hit off the bench if necessary.

Communication Breakdown

Once again, it came down to communication between the two parties.

Roberts said Wednesday that the team did emphasize communication with Ohtani: “That’s right. We did.”

The Dodgers probably should have placed Ohtani on the injured list to begin with a week earlier when they shut him down, Roberts acknowledged.

“I think if we look right now, here today, I would love to go back and put him on the IL,” he said. “But I did feel at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t. Ohtani is going to play a maximum of five regular-season games if he returns from the injured list in the minimum amount of times. Even then, it is unclear what version of him the Dodgers would be getting.

What did this cost them? In terms of roster construction, probably not much. But rather than optimize Ohtani, they might be getting a lesser version of him this October.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Fabian Ardaya / The Athletic

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