{"id":394320,"date":"2026-07-11T03:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/394320\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T03:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T03:24:10","slug":"shohei-ohtani-scratched-from-next-start-wont-travel-to-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/394320\/","title":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani scratched from next start, won’t travel to All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani<\/a> is done with pitching for the unofficial first half of the season.<\/p>\n

He did not take the mound Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks and he will not participate in the All-Star Game next week, the Dodgers<\/a> announced.<\/p>\n

Ohtani will still serve as the designated hitter through the weekend series, the team said. But the irritation in his left knee, which is aggravated by pitching, has not resolved. So, over the All-Star break, he will undergo \u201csome interventions,\u201d preventing him from traveling to Philadelphia for the All-Star Game.<\/p>\n

Those interventions will include draining his left knee, as manager Dave Roberts<\/a> confirmed before the game Friday, and likely an injection, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. <\/p>\n

Because the problem lingered, the break presented an opportunity to address it before the second half. This knee injury is not believed to necessarily be connected to the bipartite patella condition that Ohtani addressed with surgery in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is October, for all of our players,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHe\u2019s had the Cy Young in mind, and understandably so. But nothing is going to come in front of being healthy for October. And so for him to concede and miss a start for the best interest of him and you know the team, that\u2019s not a surprise. And so, those are two separate things. But No. 1 [is] being ready for October, and he\u2019s always kind of said that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision doesn\u2019t automatically remove him from the Cy Young conversation, but his workload, lessened by the six-man rotation, was already the biggest adjustment to his campaign. <\/p>\n

The procedure is scheduled for Sunday, Roberts said, so he\u2019ll likely be cleared to serve as the designated hitter Friday against the Yankees coming out of the break.<\/p>\n

Ohtani, who entered Friday with a .939 OPS, the third-best mark among qualified NL hitters, and a 1.79 ERA, the second-best mark among NL pitchers with 50-plus innings pitched, has been dealing with irritation in his knee for roughly a month.<\/p>\n

He exited the June 11 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates with inflammation in his left knee and sat out the next day. But he\u2019s played through the problem since. Friday will mark the first time Ohtani has missed a pitching start this season for the knee injury.<\/p>\n

Ohtani said then that he suspected problems with his pitching mechanics were to blame for the discomfort in his knee. He did not say whether he believed his previous kneecap condition was a factor.<\/p>\n

Though this is the first time Ohtani has skipped a pitching start, the Dodgers did push back his last start on the mound by two days. Originally scheduled to pitch in Sacramento on July 1, the Dodgers cited rest for the two-way player in the midst of 13 straight days on the team\u2019s schedule without an off day.<\/p>\n

Ohtani then held the Padres to three runs in six innings on July 3, throwing 110 pitches. In his next at-bat, he felt tightness in his right biceps, putting his next start into question.<\/p>\n

His biceps ailment, however, quickly resolved with a day off. Roberts said it didn\u2019t bother Ohtani throwing over the next week.<\/p>\n

Still, with the change in rotation schedule, and Ohtani back to full-time two-way duties for the first time since 2023, he wasn\u2019t expected to pitch in the All-Star Game or participate in the home run derby even before Friday\u2019s news.<\/p>\n

His new plans to address the irritation in his knee wiped out the couple All-Star at-bats he was penciled in for as the starting designated hitter for the National League squad. Immediately after the procedure, Dodgers wanted to avoid the added swelling that comes with air travel.<\/p>\n

Ohtani claimed his sixth consecutive All-Star selection with the most Phase 1 fan votes of any player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani is done with pitching for the unofficial first half of the season. He did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[18436,426,16113,158525,1793,2624,70887,48,52,51,54956,47,50,49,158524,158526,158529,30369,158528,422,158527],"class_list":["post-394320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-all-star-game","tag-dodgers","tag-inflammation","tag-irritation","tag-issue","tag-june","tag-knee-injury","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-left-knee","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mound-friday","tag-next-start","tag-nl-pitcher","tag-pirates","tag-second-b-mark","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-third-b-mark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}