Dodgers’ Dave Roberts Sends Shohei Ohtani Message As Concerns Mount

The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs in shutout fashion on Sunday, salvaging just one series of their last three as they enjoyed a bounceback performance from their franchise player.

With some concerns growing around an offensive slump for Shohei Ohtani, Sunday’s turnaround might have been the performance he needed to break out of it.

“The most positive offensive signs came from Ohtani,” The Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett wrote of Sunday’s game. “He was on base four times in the game with a walk, a single, a double (his first extra-base hit in six games) and a solo home run (his first home run since April 12).”

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Though Ohtani has been one of the sport’s best pitchers in his first season back to full health at the mound in some time, with a 0.38 ERA in his first four starts for the Dodgers, his hitting has been uncharacteristically pedestrian.

Ohtani has a .240/.371/.430 slash line so far this season, well below his career averages, and perhaps most notable is his 31 strikeouts so far compared to just 24 hits. Going into Sunday’s game he was in a pronounced drought that saw him strike out 11 times in the team’s previous seven games, five of which were losses.

“If Shohei Ohtani continues playing like this, he will establish another historic benchmark,” Dylan Hernandez wrote for the New York Post. “Two years after becoming the founding member of the 50-50 club, Ohtani has a chance to produce baseball’s first 200-200 season: 200 strikeouts as a pitcher and 200 strikeouts as a hitter.”

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But even if Ohtani has been playing below his own standards as a slugger, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made it clear he wouldn’t be moving him out of the leadoff spot of the batting order.

“I think you also have to look at the alternative,” Roberts said in response to that possibility, per Hernandez. “Who else would you put up there?”

Even with some hot hitters like Andy Pages and Dalton Rushing emerging for the team as Ohtani slumps, a change at the very top of the order would be hard to imagine. Ultimately, Roberts feels the team is better off waiting on Ohtani, even as concerns about his offense are growing.

“I think, for me, I’m just gonna keep betting on Shohei and kind of figure some things out,” Roberts added, according to Roberts.

Roberts was rewarded for that patience on Sunday and Ohtani could all but eliminate concerns about his prolonged strikeout stretch with another strong performance on Monday against the Miami Marlins, a team he has dominated in the past.