It’s almost unfathomable what Shohei Ohtani has done over the past month or so.
Undoubtedly one of the best players ever to set foot on a diamond, Ohtani looks like a guy who won’t struggle at any given moment.
He’s continued to defy the odds in Major League Baseball, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he has everything intact right now.
Whether it’s a lack of confidence, an injury, or something else, there’s no debate that Ohtani has never struggled like this before. All the Dodgers can hope for is that he figures some things out over the next couple of days, as they currently face a 2-0 deficit against the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS, and he’s been a big reason why.
Ohtani hasn’t only failed to get extra-base hits or make an impact on the mound, but his at-bats also don’t look good. It looks like something is wrong, as one former big leaguer recently said.
“We got a sprint going on now. I mean, in this series it’s the first of four,” Sean Casey said.
“So if I’m looking at this, I have to look at maybe guys that are hot or a guy that can maybe do a little better right now because the sample size is over a month now. It’s been almost 30 games where he’s hitting below .200 with no extra-base hits, no home runs. So it’s not like he’s just been scuffling this last week. It’s been almost a month, so I mean it’s definitely an option.”
As Casey touched on here, it will eventually have to be decided.
Reports on Monday indicated that the Dodgers might consider benching Ohtani for the remainder of this series, which suggests he likely isn’t too healthy.
If the Dodgers actually sat Ohtani, it would be one of the most shocking decisions in Major League Baseball history, given who he’s been throughout his career.
What’s even crazier, though, is that the Dodgers are so talented they can even consider doing something like this. Not that a player of his caliber can’t struggle, but Ohtani is just 3-for-20, striking out seven times and failing to put up one extra-base hit throughout the postseason.
