CHICAGO — A day after setting off alarm bells by leaving a game early, Shohei Ohtani was not in the Dodgers’ lineup on Friday. But Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he was feeling “fine-ish.”
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Ohtani went for imaging on his left knee in Chicago on Friday, Roberts said, and there were “no findings.”
“It’s just the normal wear and tear,” Roberts said. “I thought initially it was a hamstring. It was the knee. So, it just kind of got upset, swelled up a little bit. So we were kind of getting ahead of it. (It was) smart getting him out of the game which I think was prudent. And then with the travel, it’s just to give him an extra day.
“My hope is that he’s in there tomorrow. But if not, he’ll need another day. But it’s something that I think we can manage. Not an IL situation.”
Ohtani was pinch-hit for in the seventh inning of Thursday’s 8-6 win in Pittsburgh after feeling discomfort in his left knee while running the bases. Initially, Roberts blamed it on an aborted stolen base attempt in the fourth inning (Andy Pages fouled the pitch off). But he said after talking to Ohtani, it didn’t sound like there was any specific cause.
“There is no incident. We don’t know. He doesn’t know,” Roberts said Friday. “I asked him if it was during the pitching (Ohtani threw 102 pitches in 6⅔ innings on Wednesday)? Was it when he was hitting? When he was trying to steal a base? And there was no one incident. So I don’t know. I think that’s maybe a good thing.”
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Roberts said Ohtani would be re-evaluated on Saturday but “if it was another time of the season, he’d be in there.” Ohtani is scheduled to make his next pitching start on Wednesday in against the Tampa Bay Rays in Los Angeles. That is not affected “as of now,” Roberts said.
“I don’t think it’s gonna affect (his pitching schedule),” he said. “I expect him to make his start on Wednesday, until I hear otherwise. And I expect him to be in there either tomorrow or the next day, until I hear otherwise.”
Ohtani was not in the lineup – either at pitcher, DH or both – just twice in the Dodgers’ first 69 games this season. Both were games the Dodgers decided to rest him the day after he pitched.
“The running, the swinging, the landing when you’re pitching – that’s just the natural, what happens to your body,” Roberts said. “So I think that something probably just (ticked) it off a little bit. But now we can kind of manage the symptoms and feel good about it going forward.”
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More to come on this story.