Shohei Ohtani didn't break down out of nowhere. He broke down slowly, in plain view, while the best team in baseball kept running him out there until it couldn't anymore.
Dave Roberts confirmed it plainly: "We're going to IL Shohei." The 15-day injured list, for a right biceps issue and a left knee that's been nagging him for months. Because Ohtani is a two-way player, he can't use the shorter 10-day position-player IL, which pushes his earliest possible return to Wednesday, Sept. 23. Roberts said the team is targeting that date. The stint was backdated to Sept. 7, his last game action.
Look at the timeline and the frustration makes sense on its own. This wasn't a snap decision after a freak collision. Ohtani sat out for the sixth time in seven games on Wednesday, when the Dodgers hammered the Reds 14-1 to finish a sweep and stretch their streak to seven straight wins. Roberts had already floated the IL as "on the table" the week before. Everyone could see where this was going. The team just kept waiting.
The pitching gamble that never paid off
The two-way piece is where the second-guessing gets loud, and it should. Ohtani hasn't pitched in a game since July 3. He tried to build back up, resumed throwing last month, then got shut down again after a shortened bullpen on Aug. 28. By this point he wasn't even doing work with plyo balls. Roberts refused to commit to a pitching return: "I think just speaking honestly is until I see him throw a bullpen, then it becomes a conversation for me."
Ohtani, for his part, has signaled he expects to be a hitter the rest of the way, saying he'll most likely not pitch again this year and focus on his bat. What exactly did the throwing program buy the Dodgers? A pitching return that looks dead, and a hitter who wore down chasing it.
The bat paid the price
That's the part that should sting most, because the bat is elite even now. As of about a week ago, Ohtani's .906 OPS ranked fourth among MLB hitters, with a .279/.381/.525 slash line and 30 home runs on the season. That's the asset you protect at all costs in September.
Instead, look at what happened once he restarted the throwing program on Aug. 8: he hit .204 (19-for-93) with a .704 OPS and struck out 32 times in that stretch. You can argue the biceps was the real culprit. Fine. But the biceps first bothered him as a hitter and then bled into the pitching ramp-up. Piling a mound workload on top of a body already sending distress signals is a choice, and the Dodgers made it deep into a pennant race.
Roberts has since suggested the team should have moved him to the IL sooner. That's an honest admission, and it's the crux of the issue. When your manager tells you, after the fact, that the right move was available earlier, the mismanagement charge isn't a hot-take reach. It's coming from inside the clubhouse.
Where it leaves them
Give the Dodgers this: they're winning anyway. Seven in a row heading into Wednesday, cruising toward October, calling up prospect Josue De Paula from Double-A Tulsa to soak up the DH at-bats while Ohtani heals. They're also watching Freddie Freeman's right knee, so this is a two-front problem, not a solo act.
But winning the regular season was never the point for this roster. The point is having a healthy Ohtani in the batter's box in the playoffs. The Dodgers spent weeks pretending they could have the two-way dream and the September asset both. Now they've got neither the pitcher nor a fresh hitter, just a target date of Sept. 23 and the hope that 15 days of rest undoes what months of stubbornness didn't have to cost them.
My call: he's back in the lineup in time for October, and the Dodgers get away with it. That doesn't make the handling smart. It makes them lucky.
