As he returned to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ dugout after striking out in the sixth inning Monday evening, perhaps four-time MVP winner Shohei Ohtani was glad he was on the road.
Ohtani’s miserable second half continued with a 0-for-4 performance in a Game 2 loss to the Brewers. He struck out twice and started the ninth with a soft flyout to left field, immediately setting the tone for a feeble final inning. After spending nearly the entire year as heavy World Series favorites, the Dodgers are only two losses away from their season prematurely ending.
Things have gotten so bad that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hinted he’d be open to benching Ohtani for Wednesday’s Game 3. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo went a step further, reporting that the two-time defending champions would likely turn to top prospect Josue De Paula at DH.
Roberts moved Ohtani, who has only one RBI in his last 124 plate appearances, to the No. 4 and No. 5 spots this postseason.
“The Dodgers have given Ohtani plenty of leash to [turn things around] but can no longer ignore the glaring hole in the heart of the order,” Rosenthal and Woo wrote.
Ohtani, who rarely speaks to the media, didn’t talk to reporters after Monday’s loss.
The Los Angeles Dodgers must bench Shohei Ohtani to save their season
Rosenthal and Woo used the perfect term to describe the possibility of benching Ohtani: unfathomable.
As we argued on Monday, it feels like Ohtani’s struggles are far deeper than his left knee and right biceps injuries. He constantly looks uncomfortable and overmatched at the plate, and Roberts had previously admitted the six-time All-Star was pressing down the stretch. He’s gone just 3-for-20 in six playoff games, and his .411 OPS is something you would have seen from pitchers in the pre-universal DH era.
Actually, that’s us being generous, because most of those starters at least provided some value. Max Fried won a Silver Slugger with the Braves in 2021, and he had a .649 OPS in 67 plate appearances. Clayton Kershaw posted a .390 OPS in nearly 850 regular-season plate appearances, most of which ended with him moving runners via sacrifice bunt.
And then, there’s Ohtani. He’s become dead weight for a Dodgers team on the brink of elimination, and not even a first-round bye helped him get back on track. We’d argue that he looks even worse than he did in September because he had the excuse of returning from injury. But now?
The 21-year-old De Paula has drawn walks in two of his three postseason plate appearances, and he’s obviously untested after debuting on Sept. 11. What does it say when we’d rather have De Paula, who hit .323 with a stellar 1.081 OPS over 42 regular season plate appearances, over Ohtani as the Dodgers’ DH until further notice?
Even if you despise the heavy-spending Dodgers, you have to admit that Ohtani’s sudden downfall is disturbing and sad. He’s one of the greatest players in the sport’s modern history, and he has an excellent chance of becoming only the second man unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame. Outside of catastrophic injuries, this type of severe regression rarely happens to a 32-year-old superstar in his prime.
Then again, Ohtani has never quite followed the status quo. It’s unfortunately fitting, then, that his reign as the unstoppable two-way threat could end in such unorthodox — and entirely bitter — fashion.
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