Dodgers' serious conversation about benching hobbled Shohei Ohtani has arrived far too late

After losing the first two games of the NLCS to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Los Angeles Dodgers may have reached the point of, "in case of an emergency, break glass." While that may have meant unlocking Shohei Ohtani as a pitcher in past Octobers, this year, it means taking him out of the starting lineup entirely.

Anyone who's watched Ohtani during the second-half of the season knows that something looks off. He attempted to play through various injuries to close out the season, specifically a biceps strain and left knee ailment, but it was clear that his swing was altered.

The struggles have seemingly reached a boiling point during the playoffs. The Dodgers survived against the Atlanta Braves, but in the first two games against the Brewers, Ohtani looks lost. He very much looks like a pitcher being asked to hit for the first time instead of the two-way superstar he has been for most of his career.

Dodgers' reluctance to bench Shohei Ohtani has created an uncomfortable postseason problem

With that being the reality that LA is living in, it would seem that Dave Roberts and Co. are on the verge of doing unthinkable. Will the Dodgers bench Ohtani for Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday night? No final decisions have been made, and it's a conversation that extends beyond just Roberts and Ohtani, but the The Athletic's Katie Woo and Ken Rosenthal report that a benching could be imminent.

It's clear what the Dodgers were hoping for. They were hoping, as he has done before, that once the calendar flipped to October, Ohtani would don the Superman cape that he often has worn during World Series runs over the last two years. That's not quite how injuries work. Injuries, and baseball, eventually prove that even the most immortal talents are human.

Frankly, this is a conversation that the Dodgers should have had weeks ago. They had a tunnel vision on Ohtani getting back during the final week of the regular season, as if him having a ramp-up for the playoffs would magically make all of his ailments go away.

Perhaps, had they acted out of caution, the Dodgers would have benched Ohtani sooner as a way to give him to some added time off, hoping that he would be close to full health by the time the NLCS rolled around.

Instead, it feels like the inevitable thing to do is bench an compromised Ohtani and hope that his supporting cast, still comprised of superstars, save the day. Otherwise, there's a much larger question that will need to be answered this offseason.

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