NEW YORK –– The Dodgers are hopeful that Shohei Ohtani will be back in their starting lineup as designated hitter when the second half of their season kicks off Friday night.
However, the team announced Thursday that the two-way star will not make a pitching start during the team’s three-game series against the Yankees in New York this weekend, an unsurprising development following the knee treatment Ohtani received over the All-Star break.
Instead, the Dodgers will go with Roki Sasaki on Friday, Emmet Sheehan on Saturday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Sunday at Yankee Stadium.
That would push Ohtani’s first start of the second half back to at least next week’s series in Philadelphia against the Phillies, when he could pitch on Wednesday before a Thursday off-day –– but only assuming his knee is in a place to allow him to return to full-time two-way duties as the team had initially expected.
Ohtani had his final pitching start of the first half scratched last Friday because of what the team said was “continued irritation in his left knee,” the same one in which he dealt with inflammation last month.
While Ohtani continued to DH through the team’s final series before the All-Star break, he skipped the Midsummer Classic in Philadelphia so that his knee could be drained and treated with a pain-relieving injection.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told ESPN this week that Ohtani was advised against traveling across the country following that treatment plan, as “doctors didn’t want him to fly right after and get up at altitude.”
Roberts added that Ohtani was “just trying to stay off” his knee in recent days, but that the team’s “hope is that he’ll be back in there on Friday” to at least hit.
Despite his MVP-caliber performance in the first half of the season –– including a .953 OPS that ranks fifth among MLB hitters and a 1.79 ERA that ranks second among pitchers with at least 80 innings –– Ohtani’s knee had become a somewhat concerning development.
The knee first flared up on him following a June 10 start in Pittsburgh, forcing him to exit one game early and sit out another. It had continued to nag at him in the weeks that followed, with Roberts saying repeatedly it was less than 100%.
Ohtani’s pitching performances dipped during that time, going from an 0.74 ERA before June 10 to a 4.38 ERA in four starts since.
His hitting, however, had remained unaffected.
“Pitching,” Ohtani said in Japanese last week, “puts more of a strain on it.”
Ohtani said his discomfort had emanated from his kneecap area –– the same spot he had a 2019 surgery to address a congenital condition.
Still, the Dodgers have downplayed any bigger-picture concern with the problem, and are expecting Ohtani to return to two-way duties for the stretch run of the season.
That just won’t start in New York this weekend.
