Shohei Ohtani had his best start as a two-way player this season, throwing five scoreless innings and hitting a home run while leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a victory over the San Diego Padres.
However, there may be concerns about his overall health. Before the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expressed some concern over Ohtani and said he would “make sure to keep a watchful eye on him,” while adding he doesn’t know what to expect from the right-hander.
“Tonight’s going to be an interesting one,” Roberts said before the game. “I expect him to put his best foot forward, but I’ll keep a close eye on him. This is going to be an interesting one because he’s played a lot recently, so we’ll see.”
Ohtani only threw 88 pitches in the start, and by his fifth inning of work, the average fastball velocity dropped to 96.1 mph after averaging 97.8 in the first four innings of the game.
“I thought it was a little bit of a grind in the sense that I don’t think he felt his best,” Roberts said. “I think in the third and fourth innings, you could see kind of putting the governor on his fastball, just managing it and then reaching back for more when he needed to.
“I don’t think he had his best stuff tonight, but he found a way to get big outs when he needed to. Five innings, the pitch count got up there, and I felt that was all he had to give us tonight.”
Ohtani also confirmed that he wasn’t feeling right coming into the game and expressed overall disappointment with his start because of it.
“A lot of uncertainty coming into this outing because the feel wasn’t great,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, Will Ireton. “The results were good, but as you saw, the process wasn’t that great.”
Ohtani added that there isn’t any specific issue, but instead just his “overall feel.”
“I have a pretty high standard in terms of performance, so it didn’t really match,” he said.
The Dodgers pushed Ohtani’s start back and moved Emmet Sheehan up so the two-way superstar could pitch on Wednesday with the off-day on Thursday. They have done that multiple times throughout the season as they try to monitor his workload.
But whether it was fatigue or something else, Roberts isn’t sure of the exact reason Ohtani wasn’t feeling right. “I don’t know,” Roberts said.
“I just saw the overall body, it just didn’t seem he had as much reserve or stuff to work with today.
“So I really can’t pinpoint it, but he just wasn’t letting it rip as early for as long and consistently as we’ve seen in other outings. But he still has a way to use other pitches, sequence, and still get guys out.”
The Dodgers may become more aggressive in their plans to manage Ohtani’s workload. He was given two days off from hitting last week for extra rest, and the Dodgers have moved his starts around to get him extra rest.
“I think it’s just another case in point that it’s good for us to be mindful of the workload and not take that for granted,” Roberts said. “Again, he’s special and got through it.”
Dodgers have monitored Shohei Ohtani injuries this year
The Dodgers have already kept an eye on two separate instances where Ohtani may have been dealing with an issue. Ohtani was seen shaking his wrist in early April, which prompted some concern from Roberts.
The 31-year-old was also hit by a pitch on his right shoulder in the middle of April, but the Dodgers determined it to be a bruise. Still, it was something the training staff was mindful of, and Roberts expressed his relief that Ohtani wasn’t pitching the day after being hit.
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