LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani\u2019s entrance song, \u201cFeeling Good\u201d by Michael Bubl\u00e9, played at Dodger Stadium in an otherwise quiet moment Wednesday afternoon. Ohtani then emerged from the dugout for a rare session of on-field batting practice, drawing a sarcastic round of applause from his teammates. The Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 two-way phenomenon proceeded to uncork prodigious home runs, one of which clanked off the roof that sits beyond the right-field bleachers.<\/p>\n
That Ohtani put himself in that situation, taking batting practice at Dodger Stadium for the first time since joining the team two years ago, might have spoken to the urgency of the situation.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers have continued to roll through these playoffs, but Ohtani\u2019s hitting slump has merely prolonged. Since the wild-card round, he is just 2-for-25 with 12 strikeouts. His seventh-inning RBI single in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday snapped a 15-at-bat hitless streak, the second-longest of his career.<\/p>\n
Speaking before Wednesday\u2019s workout, Ohtani denied that performing as a two-way player in the postseason has impacted his hitting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t necessarily think that the pitching has affected my hitting performance,\u201d Ohtani said through an interpreter. \u201cJust on the pitching side, as long as I control what I can control, I feel pretty good about putting up results. On the hitting side, just the stance, the mechanics, that\u2019s something that I do — it\u2019s a constant work in progress. I don\u2019t necessarily think so. It\u2019s hard to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani homered twice in two wild-card wins against the Cincinnati Reds but was overwhelmed by a Philadelphia Phillies team featuring three devastating left-handed starting pitchers, going 0-for-13 with seven strikeouts against Cristopher Sanchez, Jesus Luzardo and Ranger Suarez. The Milwaukee Brewers have tried to follow a similar formula, throwing their best lefty relievers at him as often as possible. Aaron Ashby opened Game 1 of the NLCS, but Ohtani drew a walk. Ohtani faced another lefty reliever in Jared Koenig later and grounded out. In Game 2, he singled off Ashby and struck out against another lefty reliever, Robert Gasser.<\/p>\n
Of Ohtani\u2019s 40 plate appearances in these playoffs, 22 have come against lefties. He has reached base just three times against them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it makes sense strategically on their side that they would put a lot of left-handed pitchers against me,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cI\u2019m really all focused on just putting up better quality at-bats. I think in that sense, that\u2019s what I\u2019m always going to be working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani started Game 1 of the NL Division Series on the mound, pitching six innings of three-run ball. He was lined up to pitch Game 1 or 2 of the NLCS — with Game 2 preferable because an off-day would follow him filling two roles — but has instead been held back to Game 4. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the decision had more to do with lining Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto up to potentially pitch twice in the series than it did with helping Ohtani shake a hitting slump.<\/p>\n
Roberts called Ohtani\u2019s at-bats in Milwaukee \u201cfantastic,\u201d even though he went just 1-for-7.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s controlling the strike zone, I think he\u2019s still staying aggressive when he gets his pitch,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThere was a lineout to right field and there was three walks. There was the base hit in a run-scoring opportunity. Those are positives for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohtani chartered the 50\/50 club in his first season with the Dodgers in 2024 and was just as impactful an offensive player while transitioning back to pitching in 2025, slashing .282\/.392\/.622 with 55 home runs and 20 stolen bases. A fourth MVP in five years is a given. On the 14 days he also pitched, though, Ohtani\u2019s slash line took a slight dip to .222\/.323\/.556. Asked whether he has found himself needing to get re-acclimated to a two-way role, Ohtani once again demurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I might sound like I\u2019m saying the same answer again,\u201d he said, \u201cbut yeah, I don\u2019t really necessarily think it has really affected. I do feel like I was able to just have a pretty good season offensively, being able to have quality at-bats throughout the season. It\u2019s hard to say. But yeah, same answer as before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani\u2019s entrance song, \u201cFeeling Good\u201d by Michael Bubl\u00e9, played at Dodger Stadium in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,90907,462,104575,82],"class_list":["post-216356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-los-angeles-dodgers-sports-baseball-team-team-statscom-243","tag-mlb","tag-shohei-ohtani-sports-baseball-player-player-statscom-727378","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}