{"id":400656,"date":"2026-07-16T11:56:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400656\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T11:56:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:56:42","slug":"the-dodgers-most-pressing-question-can-shohei-ohtani-stay-healthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400656\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dodgers’ most pressing question: Can Shohei Ohtani stay healthy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dodgers<\/a> pitching coach Mark Prior<\/a> was worried. But how worried? He couldn\u2019t say at first.<\/p>\n

The team had already taken major steps to address Shohei Ohtani\u2019s lingering left knee issue<\/a>, presenting him with a plan to skip his last start before the All-Star break and have his knee drained that Sunday. And he\u2019d co-signed it.<\/p>\n

The swelling in Ohtani\u2019s knee, however, had already been more persistent than the team had first expected. And pitching seemed to irritate it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say, moderately concerned,\u201d Prior eventually said in a conversation with The Times last weekend. \u201cBut no more concerned than I probably am with anybody else who\u2019s had to deal with aches and pains. Hopefully, this break and this rest will get it to calm down a little bit, and then we\u2019ll see where we\u2019re at next weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Dodgers face the most pressing question for their second half: Will they be able to manage Ohtani\u2019s knee issue?<\/p>\n

Of course, plenty of other questions loom: What approach will the Dodgers take at the trade deadline? Will the pitchers coming off the injured list in the second half provide enough pitching depth? Can they maintain the best record in the majors?<\/p>\n

But naturally, Ohtani<\/a>\u2019s health is tangled up in all those answers.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers have enough star power and enough of a lead in the division to still make the playoffs without Ohtani replicating his first half on the mound (8-2, 1.79 ERA). And they showed last year that they can win a World Series<\/a> even if their postseason path begins with a wild-card series.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d prefer, however, to take a different route, with a strong second half that ensures home-field advantage all the way through the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s just trying to expect the best of your ball club,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said before the break. \u201cAnd with the talent that we have, we expect to have the best record in baseball, and so that\u2019s our standard. And so, what falls out of it is x, y and z. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re playing for.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also what they need a healthy Ohtani for.<\/p>\n

Workload is part of the equation, and an aspect that\u2019s garnered plenty of attention in Ohtani\u2019s first full season balancing two-way duties since 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been much more open and watching \u2026 his workload, and not just taking for granted that he can be a two-way player, take every at-bat, pitch like a normal pitcher,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI think that would be unfair. So for me, if anything, it\u2019s just, keep having those conversations with him, bringing them to him, and saying, \u2018Hey, this is what we see. This might be a different option, a better option for your best interest and our best interest.\u2019 And I think that with that, he\u2019s responded really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That approach will continue in the second half. But refining Ohtani\u2019s mechanics will also be vital to keeping his knee from becoming an issue again.<\/p>\n

Ohtani said it himself, through interpreter Will Ireton, last week: \u201cI have to kind of find a way to adjust my mechanics so that my knee doesn\u2019t get affected.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been trying to do so since the swelling in his knee first cropped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve identified the issue,\u201d Prior said. \u201cSometimes the fix isn\u2019t always the easiest, especially with a guy who doesn\u2019t spend probably the same amount of time on the mechanics of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a two-way player, Ohtani doesn\u2019t have the \u201cphysical bandwidth,\u201d as Prior put it, for things like multiple bullpen sessions between starts, even if they are a week apart. He has to keep the long, grueling season in mind when he\u2019s also in the lineup every day.<\/p>\n

Looking back at Ohtani\u2019s start against the Pirates last month<\/a>, the day before he exited the series finale with inflammation in his left knee<\/a>, the Dodgers observed him landing a little further across his body, likely putting extra strain on that plant leg as he moved around it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe fixed it, and then I\u2019m wondering if it got aggravated just in-game,\u201d Prior said. \u201cThese guys are extreme compensators, and in the moment they don\u2019t necessarily know what they\u2019re doing, but they\u2019re finding other ways to pitch, and then afterwards you find out that things are a little sore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani had a dominant first half, but, whether because of the knee issue, or mechanics, or some combination of the two, he wasn\u2019t quite as sharp in his last four starts (4.38 ERA).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he can fix the delivery, then he can fix a little bit more of the execution,\u201d Prior said.<\/p>\n

But will the delivery adjustment, All-Star break intervention and attention to workload fix Ohtani\u2019s knee at least through the postseason? The Dodgers\u2019 second-half trajectory will be tied up in the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior was worried. But how worried? He couldn\u2019t say at first. The team had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[84360,8269,217,426,110283,11489,48,52,51,160880,160881,47,50,49,289,10250,160882,160883,158956,777,8843],"class_list":["post-400656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-all-star-break","tag-attention","tag-day","tag-dodgers","tag-good-record","tag-knee","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-start","tag-left-knee-issue","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mechanic","tag-ohtani","tag-postseason-path","tag-pressing-question","tag-prior","tag-second-half","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400656","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=400656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}