Game on the line.
Shohei Ohtani steps in the batter’s box and decides this is the moment for him to ignore what could happen to his injured right arm or left knee.
He lets it rip – and he barrels one up.
The Dodgers go on to win the game, maybe even the series.
But that will be it.
That one at-bat will constitute the entirety of Ohtani’s postseason production.
Think the outlook is overly pessimistic?
Consider this: The scenario represents the absolute best-case scenario.
The Dodgers can’t expect anything more than that. How can they after manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani will be placed on the 15-day injured list before the Dodgers open their three-game series against the Miami Marlins on Friday?
The injuries responsible for making Ohtani look the way he looked in recent weeks aren’t the kinds of problems that will heal in a couple of weeks.
Roberts conceded as much.
“Is it going to be 100%?” Roberts said. “Probably not.”
Ohtani shared similar thoughts earlier in the week, as he emphasized the importance of making adjustments that could make him offensively productive while being physically limited.
“With some creativity,” Ohtani said in Japanese,’ I think I can make up for what’s not right.”
If his health wouldn’t substantially improve over the final three weeks of the regular season, he figured, he might as well use that time to learn how to play injured.
His body kept him from doing even that.
The one game he played in the last week – an 0-for-3 performance in a win over the Cincinnati Reds on Monday – set him back enough to where he couldn’t take at-bats he felt he needed to be competitive in the playoffs.
This wasn’t a case of his condition not improving. This was a case of his conditioning worsening, perhaps even substantially.
At this point, it would be completely unrealistic to think Ohtani could be a consistent source of offense for the Dodgers this year.
An imaginary threat that scares other teams?
Maybe.
A silver bullet who could change the game with one swing?
Less likely, but not impossible.
What Ohtani won’t do is homer one night, collect three hits the next, and drive in three runs the game after that. Doesn’t matter that he won’t be pitching.
Ohtani is six for his last 52. Since Aug. 5, he’s homered just once outside of Coors Field in high-altitude Denver.
General manager Brandon Gomes tried to downplay the severity of his injuries last week by making the laughable claim about there being no evidence that his slump was the result of his health.
Over the next seven games, Ohtani played just once.
Should the Dodgers have placed Ohtani on the injured list last week rather than let him play on Monday after sitting out four games?
Probably.
Position players have to spend a minimum of 10 days on the injured list, but Ohtani has to be sidelined for a minimum of 15 days because he is officially classified by the league as a two-way player.
Ohtani’s IL stint can be backdated to Tuesday, which means he could be activated at the earliest with five games remaining in the regular season. By placing him on the IL after he played in obvious pain on Sept. 2, the Dodgers could have made him eligible to return five days earlier.
The Dodgers’ failure to act cost Ohtani as many as four games – games in which he could have tested the adjustments he said he had to make.
But that’s almost beside the point.
By that stage of the season, there wasn’t a right answer. The Dodgers had already screwed up. Ohtani was damaged, and he and the team were doing no more than searching for the least-worst choice in a series of undesirable options.
Sometime after Ohtani made what turned out to be his final start as a pitcher on July 3, the Dodgers crossed the invisible line between involving their star player in decisions about playing time and allowing him to destroy his body.
The overwhelming desire to assist his return to the mound blinded them to what almost everyone else could see: Ohtani was falling apart.
Until Ohtani was scratched from a scheduled one-inning start in Detroit on Aug. 30, the Dodgers envisioned him contributing as a pitcher.
Now, they will be lucky to get anything out of him as a hitter.
