Shohei Ohtani is hurt. The Dodgers know he's hurt. They keep writing his name into the lineup every night. Dave Roberts said as much out loud. Asked about how the team handled Ohtani, he admitted, "I would love to go back and put him on the IL." That's a manager telling you he blew the timing, and his answer to blowing it has been to drop Ohtani to fifth in the order and keep running him out there anyway.
Look at the trail. The biceps tightened during an at-bat on July 3, in a game he was also pitching. He was pulled early and hasn't thrown a pitch since. He was 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA through 14 starts, and he won't pitch at all this postseason. The Dodgers finally put him on the IL on Sept. 11, backdated to Sept. 8, for biceps inflammation. They activated him Sept. 23 with five regular-season games left, and he's been in the heart of a playoff lineup ever since while openly managing a left knee and a right arm that have bothered him for months.
Now look at what that broken body produces at the plate. He hasn't homered since an Aug. 18 game against the Rockies. In the 24 games before the IL he hit .198 with a .689 OPS and struck out 34 times in 109 plate appearances. He came back and went 5-for-21 with one walk and eight strikeouts across those final five games. He went 2-for-13 in the NLDS against Atlanta with four strikeouts. Through the first five games of this postseason, including the NLCS Game 1 loss to Milwaukee, he had no home runs and was 3-for-16, hitting .188. One RBI across his last 23 games. The best hitter alive is swinging like a man who can't finish a swing.
Baseball is streaky, and great hitters go quiet for a couple weeks sometimes. That's real. But a normal cold streak doesn't line up this neatly with a documented knee problem and a biceps injury the team waited too long to treat. When a slump starts the moment the body starts failing and never lets up, the simplest explanation is usually right: he's playing through two injuries that need rest.
The blame sits squarely with the people filling out the lineup card. Ohtani will say he can play, that's who he is. Protecting him from himself is the manager's job, the front office's job too. They already admitted they were late once. Doing it again, in October, with the lineup sputtering and the offense managing four runs in Monday's loss, is choosing sentiment over sense.
The Dodgers are down 0-2 to the Brewers after Monday's 7-4 loss in Milwaukee, heading home for Game 3 Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. They aren't dead. Teams climb out of 0-2 holes. They won't do it by leaning on a version of Ohtani who can't drive the ball, hoping his name on the jersey outvotes the body wearing it.
Roberts had the honesty to admit he'd undo it if he could. The least he can do now is stop repeating the mistake.
