Saturday, September 5, 2026 — the most valuable player in baseball is in the cage, not the lineup, and October’s plans are changing around him.
Shohei Ohtani sat out Saturday’s game against Washington with left knee and right biceps discomfort. It was his third consecutive missed game — the first time that has happened since he joined the Dodgers before the 2024 season.
The immediate question is whether he goes on the injured list. The bigger one is whether he throws another pitch this year.
Where Things Stand
Ohtani didn’t swing a bat Thursday or Friday. Dave Roberts said he would hit in the indoor cages before Saturday’s game and didn’t rule out a pinch-hit appearance. Tommy Edman led off for the third straight day, with Teoscar Hernández at designated hitter — after Dalton Rushing, who was slotted there, was scratched with elbow discomfort.
The Dodgers are still weighing an IL placement. If they make the move by Sunday, it can be backdated to Thursday’s game against St. Louis. But the rules complicate it: because Ohtani is a registered two-way player, his minimum stint is 15 days, not the 10 days a typical position player would face. Roberts acknowledged that longer minimum is more of a deterrent than anything.
In other words, the Dodgers would rather manage this with rest days — but that only works if rest is enough.
The Slump Behind It
The physical issues explain a lot about Ohtani’s recent production. Over his last 13 games he was 7-for-51 (.137) with one home run, including a season-high four strikeouts against the Cardinals on Wednesday. Across a longer window of 109 plate appearances, he’s hitting .200/.303/.400.
His season line is still excellent — .279 with 30 homers and 80 RBIs in 129 games — but this is the worst sustained stretch of his Dodgers tenure, and it coincides with the attempt to rebuild him as a pitcher.
The Pitching Plan Is Unraveling
Ohtani hasn’t pitched in a game since early July. Before that, he was dominant: 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA over 14 starts and 85⅔ innings.
The plan to bring him back was specific. After a bullpen session on August 28, he was supposed to open a game in Detroit for an inning, then build up gradually into a postseason starter. That bullpen was cut short by right knee discomfort and a sore right biceps. He hasn’t thrown since.
Run the calendar forward and the math is hard to ignore. Even if Ohtani started throwing again next week, a pitcher who hasn’t faced hitters in two months needs several outings to stretch out. There are barely three weeks left in the regular season. A return to the mound for October now looks more like a hope than a plan.
What It Means for October
The good news for Los Angeles is that it has built a rotation that doesn’t require him. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow form a projected postseason top four, with Roki Sasaki, Eric Lauer and Justin Wrobleski as depth. The Dodgers also won the 2024 World Series without Ohtani throwing a pitch.
The bad news is that the offense needs him far more than the rotation does. The Dodgers just lost a series and a tiebreaker to Atlanta while stranding runners in bunches. A healthy Ohtani at the top of the lineup is the single biggest difference-maker they have. If the choice is between an Ohtani who pitches a little and an Ohtani who hits at full strength, the second one wins every time.
The Read
The Dodgers spent most of the summer insisting Ohtani could manage his knee and biceps while staying in the lineup. Three straight days on the bench say otherwise.
The cleanest path forward may be the one the team has resisted: shut down the pitching, treat him as a hitter for the rest of 2026, and protect the bat that matters most in October. Whether the Dodgers get there through rest days or a 15-day IL stint, the two-way plan for this season looks finished.
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