LOS ANGELES — When Shohei Ohtani returned to the starting lineup after four games off on Monday night, the Dodgers were hopeful that he had recovered from his lingering left knee and right biceps injuries to the point where he would not regress. That was not the case. Ohtani was placed on the 15-day injured list on Friday.
When Ohtani was held out of Wednesday night’s 14-1 win over the Reds, it was the sixth time he had been left out of the starting lineup in the past seven games. Manager Dave Roberts announced afterward that the Dodgers would place Ohtani on the injured list, taking the bat out of his hands with the hope that he can recover in time for the postseason run.
“It was more just really huddling up and saying, ‘Hey, how are you going to feel on Friday? How are you going to feel on Saturday?'” Roberts said. “Talking to the doctors and training staff, there was not much certainty that he’d be in a much better place. With that, just taking it off the table seemed like the best course of action.”
As a corresponding move, the Dodgers called up MLB Pipeline’s No. 6 overall prospect, Josue De Paula, from Double-A Tulsa. De Paula joined the team on Friday in Miami to make his Major League debut as DH, batting seventh.
To make room for the club’s top prospect on the 40-man roster, left-hander Eric Lauer was transferred the 60-day IL. Lauer had been on the 15-day IL with left elbow inflammation since Sept. 2.
Lauer, acquired on May 17 from theBlue Jays, was 7-2 with a 4.50 ERA in 14 appearances (12 starts) for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers initially believed that Ohtani came away from Monday — when he went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts — feeling good. He was out of the lineup again on Tuesday to ease him back, and he was expected to return on Wednesday.
But Tuesday night, Ohtani reported that his right biceps still did not feel great because of one of the swings he took Monday. Roberts previously described placing Ohtani on the IL as a deterrent because the minimum-length IL stint for two-way players is 15 days.
But after Ohtani did not show sufficient improvement over the past week, the Dodgers felt that he would be better served by taking a more extended stint to recover.
“If it were a postseason game tomorrow,” Roberts said, “he would be in the lineup. So I think that now you’re talking about two weeks, 14 days, I feel that that’s substantial, and he’ll be in a much better place than he was today.”
The Dodgers are also in solid shape as of now. They’ve won seven games in a row and are currently four games ahead of Atlanta for the No. 2 seed in the National League, which comes with a first-round bye. This gives them a bit of flexibility to try to get Ohtani completely right before the postseason.
Ohtani has dealt with health issues since June, including left knee soreness that has been the primary reason that he has not pitched since July 3. A right biceps issue first affected him as a hitter, then went on to affect his pitching ramp-up.
General manager Brandon Gomes said last week that there was no definitive causation between Ohtani’s injuries and his performance, but the deterioration of both seemed to coincide with his buildup as a pitcher. Since he began a throwing program on Aug. 8, he is hitting .198 (19-for-96) with a .689 OPS and 34 strikeouts.
Overall this season, Ohtani has a .902 OPS with 30 homers. He had been working to get as close to feeling 100 percent as he can despite the lingering injuries but he acknowledged that even with taking pitching off his plate, recovering physically is more difficult while he’s actively playing in games.
“Of course the best mode of recovery is to completely not play,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Monday. “But right now, I just want to make sure that I’m playing, playing well and just focusing on the now.”
Ohtani will not travel to Miami and Cincinnati with the Dodgers on the upcoming road trip. He’ll stay back in Los Angeles, where he’ll go through regular conditioning but likely be shut down from swinging for a few days. After that, he will slowly ramp back up.
The Dodgers can backdate Ohtani’s IL placement to Tuesday, which would make him eligible to return on Sept. 23. That leaves him five regular-season games to get his swing back up to speed, which Roberts acknowledged is not ideal — but better than letting him continue to regress while playing games.
It is difficult enough for the Dodgers to convince Ohtani to take any time off, let alone an IL stint’s worth of days. But he and the team align on their ultimate goal: having him at his best for the postseason.
“I think he realizes it’s the best thing for him,” Roberts said, “to give him the best chance to be the player he wants to be — we want him to be — in October.”