The Dodgers need to rest slumping Shohei Ohtani

Watching Shohei Ohtani extend his slump for another game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said there will be a game in the future where the doubles player will not be in a position to hit.

That could be Wednesday, when Ohtani is scheduled to play. Or that could be Thursday, when the Dodgers host the San Francisco Giants in the finale of a four-game series.

At this point, Roberts may move on. He might force Ohtani to take a day off.

Not a half break. It is completely closed.

No throwing, no hitting, nothing.

No batting cage, no weight room.

Because the way Ohtani looks right now, nothing outside of his record indicates that he’s going to hit anytime soon.

This is not limited to his statistics, which continue to decline. This is about how he looks.

If Ohtani is tired, weak or injured, he doesn’t say it. But a scout’s eye is not needed to tell that something is wrong with him. And just as Ohtani downplayed his early season form by citing his history as a slow starter, his actions indicate he is concerned.

Before the Dodgers’ 9-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Monday night, Ohtani broke his habit of not hitting the field. Ohtani also struck out last week when the Dodgers were in Houston to play the Astros.

In both cases, Ohtani entered the bullpen to prepare for an upcoming start as a pitcher. In Houston, he threw hit after hit. At Dodger Stadium, he threw before he hit.

“In Houston, BP hit in front of his bullpen,” Dodger hitting coach Aaron Bates said. “He’s a little tired because of the bullpen, so this time he decided to hit from behind.”

The busy pregame schedules on those days were examples of the problem Ohtani mentioned a few weeks ago. When he’s in rhythm at the plate, he said his duties as a pitcher don’t stop him from maintaining his form. But he admitted he can’t spend as much time as he’d like to fix the out-of-whack swing.

Ohtani cleared right field in batting practice on Monday, but he also hit a bunch of grounders on his pull side. Was he affected by his time in the bullpen? Only Ohtani knows.

Either way, after throwing 23 pitches in the bullpen and taking 52 swings in batting practice, Ohtani looked tired. His strong swing in batting practice followed him into the game, with three of his at-bats resulting in runs down the right field, including two with runners in scoring position.

“That tells me there’s overconcern, in my opinion,” Roberts said.

Ohtani hit two more at-bats, his batting average dropped to .233 and his OPS to .767. Since 2021, when he won his MVP award, his batting average has been 41 games a season.

He hasn’t hit in his last 50 games, and that’s not even his longest home run of the season. His most recent homer, on April 26, ended his streak of 59 consecutive plate appearances.

An unproductive Ohtani has translated into an unproductive lineup for the Dodgers, who have lost 13 of their last 22 games.

Roberts said this was the worst he’s ever seen Ohtani at the plate.

“I think even in the beginning, when he wasn’t right, he was still walking and starting over,” Roberts said. “But I think right now, and tonight was a classic example, I think he’s trying to get out of it. So that’s obvious. And a lot of hitters, when they scratch, they want to just get out of it.”

The drop in offensive production could be the result of his return to hitting full time, something he did not do in his last two seasons with the Dodgers. Fittingly, his career-worst 93 plate appearances came in the same season in which he posted a career-high number of innings. That was 2022, and the Angels.

Something else to consider: Ohtani turns 32 in July.

His reluctance to link his problems to his hitting is entirely understandable, as he has encountered varying degrees of opposition playing both ways back in Japan. That doesn’t mean the Dodgers should ignore what’s in front of them.

When the Dodgers signed Ohtani, they committed to giving him a platform to continue his unprecedented streak. By refusing to acknowledge the reality of his physical limitations, they would be pushing him closer to deciding whether to focus on hitting or riding. The best way they could support him now is to do everything they can to make sure he remains a two-way player. At this point, that needs a break.

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