Dodgers planning to give slumping Shohei Ohtani back-to-back days off as hitter

How bad has Shohei Ohtani’s recent hitting slump gotten?

Bad enough, that manager Dave Roberts said the two-way star might be out of the Dodgers’ lineup –– at least as a hitter –– the next two nights.

While Ohtani was in the team’s Tuesday lineup as leadoff man and designated hitter, Roberts said the slugger would get the day off on Thursday, and that he was leaning toward only having him pitch in his scheduled Wednesday start on the mound, as well.

If the team follows through on that plan, it would mean giving Ohtani back-to-back days off at the plate; a break Roberts believes could benefit the 31-year-old as he grinds through a prolonged cold spell offensively.

“I think it’s just more of, kind of thinking that it might just be a good thing to take a little bit of a load off his plate offensively,” Roberts said. “Letting his body recover a little bit, as far as (not) being a two-way player for a couple days. Playing more of the longer view, potentially giving him a reset on the offensive side.”

Ohtani could certainly use a reset as a hitter. He entered Tuesday mired in a 4-for-38 slump over his last 11 games. He has batted just .200 over the last month overall. And he has only one home run in his last 107 plate appearances, a stunning power outage for a four-time MVP coming off back-to-back 50-homer campaigns.

In each of those last two seasons, of course, Ohtani wasn’t also taking on full-time pitching duties as he is right now –– sporting an MLB-best 0.97 ERA in his first six starts.

And while he disputed the notion that his pitching is directly causing his batting slump, both he and team officials have acknowledged the added difficulty that comes with trying to balance both roles, especially when his swing is as out of whack as it appears right now.

“I think we all came in knowing that we had to read and react,” Roberts said of the challenge of trying to manage Ohtani’s workload. “It was gonna be fluid. It should be. It’s very unique … So, no one thought it was gonna be easy.”

No one, of course, seemed to think it would be this difficult either.

“I think the fatigue (of his workload) is bleeding into the mechanics (of his hitting),” Roberts said. “I think that most players get that towards the end of the summer. And now I’m learning, managing Shohei, it has probably shown itself a little earlier, as far as the tax on pitching and all that comes with it to the hitting too.”

Though Ohtani has looked off at the plate for a while –– his current .767 OPS, though still well above league average, is his lowest to this point of a season since 2022 –– his last couple games have been especially poor. 

Not only did he record consecutive hitless performances Sunday and Monday, but he also started expanding his strike zone and abandoning any semblance of plate discipline. Roberts called it a “classic example” of a slumping hitter “trying to swing out of” their struggles. He cited it as the inciting factor behind the decision to potentially give Ohtani a more extended break offensively this week.

“For me, with any hitter, when the quality of at-bat starts to go down consistently, I think that’s a telling sign there needs to be a break,” Roberts said. “Because you’re just not able to –– whether it’s the mechanics, the mind –– just stay within your game plan, and then the chase starts to spike.”

Ohtani will still be plenty busy Wednesday, as he tries to continue a scorching start as a pitcher that has put him firmly in the early-season Cy Young conversation. 

But on Thursday, Roberts said he wanted the superstar to show up to the park later than normal, get plenty of rest and recovery time, and prepare only for a possible pinch-hit at-bat late in the game.

“He’s still calibrating on this kind of newfound two-way player (role) in today’s day,” Roberts said, highlighting how much has changed (both in the sport and with Ohtani) since he was last a full-time two-way player with the Angels from 2021-2023. “I just can’t take for granted what’s on his plate. So I’m trying to be sensitive to that.”

Roberts insisted that, long-term this year, keeping Ohtani in a full-time two-way role still “definitely feels sustainable,” and that the potential two-day reset should only provide upside in his bid to get back on track this year.

Right now, he said, he is simply trying to be proactive before Ohtani’s early slump gets any worse.

“He’s always gonna want to do more. He always has that sense of responsibility to his teammates, that he wants to be out there both ways,” Roberts said. “So I’ve learned that I have to be proactive and take it out of his hands, like most great players.”

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