Dodgers may bench Ohtani as injury-plagued star struggles in NLCS

The Dodgers arrived in Milwaukee for Game 2 of the National League Championship Series still holding to a simple faith: Shohei Ohtani would find his way. He always did. But after a 7-4 loss that dropped them into a two-game hole, manager Dave Roberts acknowledged what had become unavoidable—the team would need to have a serious conversation about whether their four-time MVP should even be in the lineup for Game 3.

Ohtani's performance Monday night was the worst of his postseason run. He went hitless in four at-bats, struck out twice, and looked fundamentally lost at the plate. Against Brewers rookie Logan Henderson in the first inning, he chased an elevated fastball on three pitches. In the second, he flailed at another high fastball and grounded out softly to third. By the sixth, facing left-handed reliever JoJo Romero, he was so fooled by a slider that his bat flew from his hands as he tried to check his swing. In the ninth, he lifted a harmless fly ball to left.

The numbers tell a story of steady decline. Over six playoff games, Ohtani had managed just three hits in twenty at-bats—all singles—with two walks and seven strikeouts. He was playing through a right arm injury and a left knee issue, operating at something well short of full strength, a reality the team had repeatedly acknowledged. Before Monday, he had at least reached base in each of his first five playoff games. That streak ended in Milwaukee.

The Dodgers' situation had become genuinely dire. Down two games to none in a best-of-seven series, they were now two losses away from elimination. Only one team in baseball history—Dave Roberts' own 2004 Boston Red Sox—had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit. Roberts himself said the math was simple: "Can we come back in this series? Absolutely. But it's just, you want to get that first win." The team's offense had managed only three hits in Game 2, made outs in all fifteen at-bats against Brewers relievers, and looked like a unit desperately needing a spark.

The decision to bench Ohtani would be stunning on its surface. He is, by any measure, one of baseball's most talented players. Yet the calculus had shifted. Before the game, Ohtani had taken batting practice on the field for a third consecutive day—an unusual move for someone who normally worked exclusively in the indoor cages. Coaches had been encouraged by what they saw, noting that he was driving the ball to the big part of the field. Roberts had said Sunday that Ohtani was "certainly not 100 percent, but it's good enough." By Tuesday night, that assessment no longer held.

If the Dodgers moved forward without Ohtani at the designated hitter spot for Game 3, when the Brewers would start left-hander Robert Gasser, they had options. The most obvious was rookie Josue De Paula, a twenty-one-year-old called up straight from double-A in September who had logged only forty-five major league plate appearances. Yet he had reached base in more than half of them. He had drawn a pair of impressive walks as a pinch-hitter in recent days—one that helped set up a game-winning rally in the NLDS, another in a failed ninth-inning comeback in Game 1 of the NLCS. De Paula was fully healthy, and at this stage, a fully healthy bat might matter more than a diminished superstar.

Alternatively, the Dodgers could use the DH spot to bring back Kiké Hernández, an October performer and right-handed hitter who had been benched for Game 2 in favor of Tommy Edman. They could also consider Miguel Rojas, another right-handed option nursing a back injury from the NLDS. None of these were the scenarios the Dodgers had envisioned when they began their bid for a third consecutive World Series title. But with the series slipping away and Ohtani's performance moving in the wrong direction, every option was suddenly on the table. The best player in baseball, at least in his current condition, might need to sit.