LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani won’t hit in one of the final two games against the San Francisco Giants this week, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hasn’t yet decided if that will be on Wednesday when Ohtani pitches or on Thursday for what would amount to a mental reset day for the slumping superstar.
When to give Ohtani any sort of rest has been an interesting puzzle to solve as he’s back to being a full-time two-way player for the first time since 2023. He didn’t hit in three of his first six pitching starts, including his previous two times on the mound. But he has played in all 41 games in one way or another.
“One of those days he’s not going to hit, I haven’t decided,” Roberts said Monday night. “But on top of that, given what we’re asking of him on the pitching side, it’s a fair question.”
When Shohei Ohtani last homered, on April 26 against the Chicago Cubs, he snapped a string of 59 consecutive plate appearances without a long ball, his longest power drought since joining the Dodgers. Since then, Ohtani has gone 51 plate appearances and 13 full games since, his second-longest skid with the team.
He was hitless in five at-bats with a pair of strikeouts in Monday’s loss, and since that last home run has seven hits in 43 at-bats, hitting .163/.294/.209 with seven walks and 12 strikeouts. That dropped his season line to .233/.363/.404, which is a 114 wRC+, but with an isolated power (.171) 75 points lower than any of his previous five seasons.
“Even early on [in the season] when he wasn’t hitting, he was still taking walks and getting on base,” Roberts said. “Tonight was a classic example, I think he’s just trying to swing out of it, that’s just so apparent. A lot of hitters, when their scuffling, they want to swing out of it, and tonight was one of those nights.”
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