Ohtani Bats Sixth and Reaches Three Times as Dodgers Fall 6-2 to Trail 3-0

Update, October 14: Game 3 is played, and the drop happened. Ohtani batted sixth, reached base three times, and the Dodgers still lost 6-2 to fall 0-3 behind in the NLCS. The Game 3 section is below, after the original reporting.

Update, October 13: The conversation happened, and Ohtani starts Game 3. Roberts confirmed on Tuesday that Ohtani will be in Wednesday’s lineup, batting somewhere from second to sixth, after Ohtani told him he was well enough to help the team win, AP reports. Ohtani also spoke to reporters for the first time since before the NLDS.

A week ago the Dodgers were moving Shohei Ohtani down the order. Now they are discussing whether he should be in it at all. After Monday’s 7-4 loss in Milwaukee put Los Angeles 0-2 down in the National League Championship Series, manager Dave Roberts told The Athletic he would have a conversation with Ohtani on Tuesday about his place in the Game 3 lineup, and he did not rule out benching the four-time MVP, Larry Brown Sports reports. The New York Post reports the decision will come down to whether Ohtani still feels healthy enough to remain the starting designated hitter. Game 3 was played on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.

What exactly did Roberts leave open?

Everything except the process. Roberts told The Athletic that it obviously has not been good, that Ohtani does not feel great, and that the two of them would talk on Tuesday about what is best for the player and for the team, adding that Ohtani has earned that conversation. That is a long way from the club’s position entering Monday, when removing Ohtani from the lineup was not under serious consideration, the Post reports. It is also a different kind of decision from the one Roberts made in the division series, when he dropped Ohtani to fifth against Atlanta and Ohtani accepted it in a conversation the night before. Moving a hitter down is a manager’s call. This one, as the Post frames it, runs through the player’s own answer about his body, which is why the outcome sits with Tuesday’s meeting rather than with the lineup card Roberts would prefer to write. The same Milwaukee staff that forced this question also benched its own captain, Christian Yelich, for Game 1 of this series, so neither dugout is treating October reputation as protection.

How bad did Game 2 get for Ohtani?

Bad enough that the low point was a swing at a pitch nowhere near the zone. Ohtani ended the first inning with a three-pitch strikeout on an elevated fastball from rookie Logan Henderson, stranded a runner at second in the second inning, and in the sixth was fooled so completely by a JoJo Romero slider on a checked swing that the bat flew out of his hands, the Post and Yardbarker report. He flied out in the ninth to finish 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, which left him 3-for-20 in the postseason, all singles, with seven strikeouts. Los Angeles managed three hits all night, and Henderson’s two throwing errors were needed to gift the Dodgers two of their runs. One detail from before the game reads differently now: Ohtani took batting practice on the field for a third straight day, the Post reports, a change of routine for a player who normally hits only in the indoor cages, and the coaches who liked the look of his swing on Sunday were watching a different hitter by Monday night.

What is actually wrong with him?

The Dodgers have never put one clean diagnosis on it, and the reporting reflects that. The Post describes ongoing right arm and left knee issues, with Ohtani playing at what the team has repeatedly acknowledged is well below 100 percent. The arm problem ended his season as a pitcher earlier in the year, and in September he asked to focus only on hitting. The numbers since then describe a hitter compensating rather than driving the ball: The Athletic’s figures, carried by Heavy, have him at .157 with one RBI since August 19, rarely pulling the ball or hitting it hard, and trying to shorten his swing. Roberts said on Sunday that Ohtani was certainly not 100 percent but good enough. The benching conversation exists because Monday raised the question of whether good enough still holds, in a series where Milwaukee’s bullpen has allowed one earned run in 28 2/3 postseason innings and there is no soft at-bat left to hide in.

Who plays if Ohtani sits?

Most likely a 21-year-old who was in Double-A last month. Josue De Paula was called straight up from Double-A in September and has reached safely in more than half of his 45 major-league plate appearances, the Post reports, including a pinch-hit walk that set up the game-winning rally in Game 4 of the NLDS and another in a failed ninth-inning comeback in Game 1 of this series. The DH spot could instead return Kike Hernandez to the lineup, or fit Miguel Rojas in as an extra right-handed bat against left-handed starter Robert Gasser. Each option gives the Dodgers a healthier hitter and takes away the one swing in the order Milwaukee still has to plan around, which is the trade Roberts has to price. It is the same roster pressure that has run through this series from the other side, where Will Smith’s two declined ABS challenges in Game 2 became a story about a catcher protecting his pitcher: in a 0-2 hole, every regular decision gets re-examined as if it were a gamble.

What did the Tuesday conversation settle?

It settled the lineup question and changed who owns the slump. Roberts spoke with Ohtani before Tuesday’s workout at Dodger Stadium, where Ohtani again took batting practice on the field. Roberts said afterward that the talk was not about benching him for form. It was an offer of a couple of days off if Ohtani did not feel able to perform, along the lines of the rest Freddie Freeman took during the 2024 postseason before he won World Series MVP, AP reports. Ohtani declined it in substance. He told Roberts he was well enough to help and that he feels close to finding something mechanically in his swing. He then said the same to reporters in an unscheduled appearance in the off-day interview room, his first public comments since before the NLDS. His symptoms have eased, he said, and the symptoms should not be the reason he cannot hit. The one thing left open is the batting position: Roberts said Ohtani will hit somewhere from second to sixth against left-hander Robert Gasser, so the drop down the order Roberts used in the NLDS is still on the table even though the benching is not.

What happened when Ohtani batted sixth in Game 3?

He reached base three times, and it changed nothing about the result. Roberts wrote Ohtani in at sixth, the lowest he has batted since joining the Dodgers three years ago, AP reports, and explained the move before the game as a search for better lineup balance, with Ohtani on board with it, the New York Post reports. Ohtani singled, walked and was hit by a pitch in four plate appearances, Reuters reports, a better night than the three singles he had managed in his first 20 postseason at-bats. His sixth-inning walk loaded the bases for Will Smith, whose two-run double off the wall put Los Angeles ahead 2-1 and gave the Dodgers their only lead of the night. It lasted into the next half inning. Blake Snell had retired 14 straight hitters before Jake Bauers ended an 11-pitch at-bat with a two-run homer in the seventh, Garrett Mitchell followed two pitches later with a solo shot, and Milwaukee pulled away to win 6-2, Reuters and AP report. Jackson Chourio had homered on the first pitch of the game, and the seventh-inning rally even ran through Milwaukee’s benched captain, Christian Yelich, the pinch-runner who scored on Bauers’s homer. Los Angeles has trailed 3-0 in a best-of-seven series only once before, the 1966 World Series sweep by Baltimore, and the only team to come back from 0-3 in a postseason series is the 2004 Boston Red Sox, AP reports.

What happens next?

Game 4 is Thursday at Dodger Stadium, and it is an elimination game. One more Milwaukee win sends the Brewers to their second World Series, and their first as a National League club, a year after Los Angeles swept this same matchup, AP reports. The Ohtani questions are narrower now: whether Roberts keeps him at sixth after the three times on base or moves him back up, and whether the healthier alternative, rookie Josue De Paula, enters the picture with the season on the line. Ohtani produced in Game 3 and the Dodgers lost anyway, which moves the argument on from his place in the order to whether this lineup can score at all. Milwaukee has held Los Angeles to eight runs across three games. The argument in the home dugout widened on Thursday, when Freddie Freeman rejected the idea that the Dodgers are losing because they are old and said the team is simply not playing well.