Shohei Ohtani's injury bullishness must prompt longer Dodgers offseason conversation

Despite post-Game 2 conversations about benching him, Shohei Ohtani will indeed be in the Los Angeles Dodgers' lineup for Game 3 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Dave Roberts said during the off day that Ohtani is "taking this as a personal challenge." He's "adamant" that "he was onto something mechanically."

Said Ohtani, "The results, I take full responsibility. That's all I can really say, why the results haven’t been where I wanted it to be. But I think there's different approaches to this, whether that be focusing on reducing the symptoms and getting rid of the pain and/or just making sure that I'm moving well in the swing."

Roberts continued, "In this big moment, we're listening to Shohei. And we're supporting the crap out of him and believe in him."

Fan reactions have been mixed. There's the "He's a baller! Ride or die with LA!" contingent, and the "This actually seems like an ill-informed and kind of selfish move" party.

We're inclined to agree with the latter, because this is all a continuation of an underlying theme that got the Dodgers into trouble as early as July. Who's in charge here? Who's running this team?

Dodgers capitulating to Shohei Ohtani's wishes despite injuries raises uncomfortable questions about hierarchy

The way Ohtani described working through his injuries and "finding something" in his mechanics is particularly disquieting. "It's just really kind of just going back and forth, finding the right parts of the swing and managing just the different parts of the swing," he said. "So it's a constant, ongoing process that's headed in the right direction."

That sounds like something a player would say when they're going through a midsummer swoon, not when their team is two losses away from postseason elimination.

The Dodgers have always been inclined to listen to their superstar player first, but that's what got them in here in the first place, with Ohtani killing the lineup's already very rare momentum. He insisted that he should still be able to find a way to hit despite his injuries — which, fine — but he's been doing that. And it's resulted in strikeouts that look like this.

The way Roberts made it sound, he approached Ohtani about being benched, Ohtani said no, and Roberts held his hands up and walked away. Is that leadership? Who's in charge here?

It's one thing to stand by your guys, and it's another to be so willfully ignorant to the moment. The Dodgers are down 2-0. They've been outplayed by the Brewers in every conceivable way, and Milwaukee isn't so foolish as to think that they can pitch Ohtani any softer because he's not himself.

All the Dodgers need to win this bet is for Ohtani to go out there tonight and not turn into an automatic out. They'll say, "See? We always believed in him." He might slap a couple singles through the gap, he might even get lucky and send one out of the park, because he's Shohei Ohtani. But the longer the Dodgers let this go on, the longer the illusion of Shohei Ohtani starts to crack, and the more the team looks like they'll let a player overrule them in the most dire of circumstances.

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