Dave Roberts' ominous Shohei Ohtani shutdown is admission of a new pitching reality

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is not messing around with Shohei Ohtani's health. After Ohtani came out of a 20-pitch bullpen last Friday feeling less than 100%, Roberts decided that Ohtani would not pitch Sunday against the Detroit Tigers. We've since learned that Ohtani will not pitch Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, there is no target date.

Ohtani hasn't pitched in a game since July 3 due to left knee inflammation, right biceps soreness, and "overall body issues," in the words of Roberts. And while the Dodgers aren't shutting down Ohtani entirely as a pitcher, they are facing a new situation now with the postseason fast approaching.

Shohei Ohtani's runway is gone to return as a starting pitcher for Dodgers

The Dodgers had been slow-playing Ohtani's return, as they tend to do with all of their star pitchers. Even Sunday's start was supposed to be a one-inning opener before Tyler Glasnow took over. The plan was for Ohtani to make five more "starts" before the end of the regular season as a means to build up toward a bigger workload heading into October.

That plan is no longer in play. It remains to be seen how the Dodgers staff will handle Ohtani's workload between now and the end of the season, but there's no easy formula to rest on. There never is when it comes to Ohtani.

The good news is, the Dodgers can plausibly survive without Ohtani pitching at all. With Glasnow back in the fold, along with Blake Snell, a postseason rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Snell, and Glasnow might be enough. And don't forget about Roki Sasaki, whose blister problem will surely have subsided by the time the playoffs arrive.

Roberts and the Dodgers know that it would be unwise to cut into Ohtani's offensive value by putting too much pitching work on the superstar's plate. Is LA just delaying the inevitable decision to shut Ohtani down as a pitcher? It's one of three plausible paths the Dodgers can embrace moving forward.

The Dodgers still might try to give Ohtani opener starts whenever he begins to feel healthy enough. This would ostensibly keep Ohtani sharp enough to be a potential high-leverage weapon in October.

Another option would be to punt on Ohtani pitching at all until the postseason begins, and then throwing him into the fire in high-leverage situations after a longer period of rest. This would feel like the riskiest of paths for the Dodgers, but maybe an extended period of no pitching is simply what Ohtani's body needs to recover.

The safest route, of course, is to rule out Ohtani pitching for the remainder of the year. Doing so wouldn't diminish what Ohtani has accomplished this season as a two-way player for much of the campaign. He made 14 starts and tallied an 8-2 record with a 1.79 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 85⅔ innings. It's not the Cy Young résumé that Ohtani was shooting for at the outset of 2026, but he's only human.

And that might be the key to the Dodgers leveraging Ohtani's singular talent to the max...remembering that he's human. By having Ohtani do less, he'll end up offering more. The two-way experiment was a lofty goal, but it's time to focus only on team goals. At this point, Ohtani's bat alone is a worthy and meaningful contribution to the ongoing three-peat chase.

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