LOS ANGELES — Even Shohei Ohtani isn’t sure the extent of injuries to his right biceps, left knee and neck that kept him off the mound after the midseason break for the MLB All-Star Game and landed him on the injured list for the first time since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of the 2024 season.
“I haven’t been able to get a good grasp of the root cause of all this, so I think that process is going to happen during the offseason when I’m going have a little bit more time to be able to address it,” the 32-year-old two-way star from Japan said Friday through a translator. “As of now, it’s something I’m just going to have to manage.”
Ohtani’s health is key to the Dodgers’ hopes of winning a third consecutive World Series championship. Los Angeles, which went 100-62 during the regular season to win its fifth straight National League West Division title, wound up as the second seed in the NL and received a first-round bye in the playoffs. Its postseason starts Saturday afternoon, when the Atlanta Braves visit Dodger Stadium to open a best-of-five NL Division Series.
Dave Roberts, the team’s 11th-year manager seeking his fourth title at the helm, isn’t sure what Ohtani can deliver.
“I know that once the lights turn on, the postseason starts, the focus will be heightened,” he said. “I expect good things. I really do. We just haven’t seen it enough for me to forecast it.”
The four-time league MVP award winner came off the IL with just five games remaining in the regular season. He was 5-for-21 with eight strikeouts, a walk and a double in that span.
The Dodgers have said Ohtani is feeling better since his return, and Roberts believes his at-bat quality showed improvement.
Ohtani said his body “feels really good overall. I do feel like my swing is in a better place — it feels smooth. Just little tweaks here and there, and I’ll be ready.”
Ohtani was single when he went on the IL twice during his first six MLB seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. He’s now married and a father of two, with his son arriving in late June to join a daughter born in April 2025.
“If I’d been by myself this time, I probably would have had a lot more time to think about everything, and I imagine it would have been much harder mentally,” he said in Japanese. “But I had a house full of people around me, so that made a big difference in terms of how I felt.”
Ohtani throws right-handed and bats left-handed. He explained that he was better able to use his left arm with his daughter. His infant son, however, requires two arms to hold, which limited him because of the injury to his right biceps.
Ohtani took live batting practice against countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto earlier in the week. The last time they’d faced each other was in 2017 in Nippon Professional Baseball, when Ohtani struck out and singled off Yamamoto.
“I think it was a valuable experience for both of us in terms of getting some game-like repetitions. I got to take a few at-bats and see all of his different pitches,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “It was a lot of fun. It felt fresh and exciting. His stuff also felt quite different from what I remembered.”
While the Dodgers are waiting to see what they get from Ohtani, the Braves already know one thing about themselves: Their starting pitching rotation is seriously strained coming into this NLDS.
Atlanta finished six games ahead of the second-place Philadelphia Phillies to win the NL East Division title, but as the No. 3 seed in the league, the Braves had to play in the opening round as the Dodgers rested up. And unlike the other three best-of-three series in the wild-card round, Atlanta needed all three games to get past the sixth-seeded Phillies.
The Braves won 5-3 on Tuesday afternoon, lost 4-3 in 10 innings Wednesday afternoon, then won 6-2 on Thursday night.
Braves ace Chris Sale pitched 6 1/3 innings in the series opener and was on the mound for the final four outs in the decider. He threw 95 pitches while starting Game 1, leaving the 37-year-old left-hander’s possible start against the Dodgers in Game 2 on Sunday evening up in the air.
“A lot of it’s going to depend on how Chris feels. Certainly don’t want to jeopardize him and his health,” manager Walt Weiss said Friday. “He’s had to grind here recently, so we’re going to err on the side of giving him more rest, if it’s even close.”
On Thursday, the Braves ruled out starters Martín Pérez (back) and Bryce Elder (knee) for the NLDS.
“There’s a chance we’re going to have to pitch a lot of innings out of our bullpen, especially the first couple games,” Weiss said. “We’ll have to add some arms to the roster.”
The Braves had a late night after eliminating the Phillies and then traveling Friday to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers have been off since playing their regular-season finale last Sunday.
“My world is spinning right now,” Weiss said.
And it’s about to heat up, too.
Los Angeles is under an extreme heat warning, and it’s expected to continue into late next week.
Saturday’s forecast calls for a high temperature of 100 degrees during the game, when Tarik Skubal takes the mound for the Dodgers. The average high in early October is 81 degrees.
“I know the pitchers are going to have a hard time,” Ohtani said. “I’m wishing all the best for Scooby.”
Skubal grew up in Kingman, Arizona, where the average July temperature is 96 degrees. He said he’ll drink plenty of water Saturday.
“You’re just not going to the bathroom because you’re probably sweating it out,” he said.
Sunday’s contest begins four hours later than Saturday’s does, but conditions won’t be much better for Game 2, with a projected high of 99 degrees.
The highest game-time temperature ever recorded at Dodger Stadium is 103 degrees, recorded twice. The first time was Oct. 24, 2017, for Game 1 of the World Series against the Houston Astros. It was equaled on Sept. 8, 2024, for a regular-season game against Cleveland Guardians.
The Dodgers are encouraging fans to wear hats and sunscreen. They’re allowed to bring in nonalcoholic drinks of one liter or less in factory-sealed plastic bottles. Empty refillable water bottles are allowed. Bottle filling stations and water fountains are scattered around the stadium.