LOS ANGELES -- Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his scheduled pitching start on Friday due to continued irritation in his left knee, according to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who made the announcement roughly six hours before he was scheduled to take the mound.
Ohtani will still serve as the Dodgers' designated hitter for their weekend series against the division-rival Arizona Diamondbacks but will not join the rest of his teammates at the All-Star Game thereafter. In a statement, the Dodgers said Ohtani will instead "have some interventions on his knee to put him in the best position for the second half of the season."
Those "interventions" will include having his left knee drained and potentially receiving a pain-relieving injection in L.A. on Sunday. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn't expect the procedure to impact Ohtani's ability to pitch after the All-Star break, though he's not sure when he will slot in.
"He's been managing this quite well, the knee," Roberts said. "So if there's a chance that we could kind of be proactive and get it drained and do whatever we need to do to try to manage it, along with the rest for the All-Star break, we were gonna do that."
The Dodgers, coming out of an off-day, will stage a bullpen game in Ohtani's absence on Friday, beginning with right-handed reliever Kyle Hurt.
Ohtani left a June 11 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates early because of irritation in that left knee -- the same knee that underwent surgery to address a congenital condition called bipartite patella in September of 2019 -- and had the next day off. He has been managing it ever since.
Ohtani has remained a productive hitter through that, slashing .247/.354/.506 in 22 games since, but he has not attempted a stolen base in that time. On the mound, he has tweaked the position of where he lands to compensate for the knee and has not been as effective, allowing 10 runs (nine earned) in 18 innings over his last three starts. Roberts said there wasn't a new incident that prompted the Dodgers to skip his start.
"It was just more of, 'OK, if we have a potential opportunity to nip this, let's do it, and let's not try to add to it,'" Roberts added. "So that's why, how we came out of Wednesday's game with the pitching, we had enough pitching to cover, and not take more of a toll going into the All-Star break, was sort of the thought, the conversation."
Ohtani went into this season with ambitions of winning his first Cy Young Award and was already at a disadvantage from a workload standpoint while residing in a strict six-man rotation. Ohtani has compiled 85â…” innings so far this season, while putting up a 1.79 ERA. Eighty-three pitchers have thrown more. By the time the All-Star break arrives, he will fall further down the list.
The Dodgers presenting him with their plans of skipping his start and Ohtani accepting might be a sign that he will not compromise his availability for the stretch run of the season in pursuit of a trophy.
Asked if that was a relief, Roberts said: "I wouldn't say relief. I think that, No. 1, he's always said, we've always said, the goal is October, for all of our players. With that, yeah, he's had the Cy Young in mind, and understandably so. But nothing is gonna come in front of being healthy for October. So for him to concede and miss a start for the best interest of him and the team, that's not a surprise."
Ohtani, five days removed from his 32nd birthday, had also been dealing with a blister in his pitching hand and tightness in his right bicep, but both those issues have seemingly subsided. Roberts said Ohtani will not require further imaging on his knee and, because of the timing of his procedure, expects him to be in the lineup in the Dodgers' first game after the All-Star break at Yankee Stadium next Friday.
If this were October, Roberts said, Ohtani would be pitching.
"I think we all know with where we're at, who he is as a player, if there's opportunities to be extra cautious and mindful, it's just prudent," Roberts added.
