Dave Roberts just put the most expensive bat in baseball on notice, and the entire National League Championship Series just got colder than a Dodger Stadium night in October. Down 0-2 to the Brewers after another lifeless loss, Roberts told The Athletic he is sitting down with Shohei Ohtani on this off day to decide whether the superstar even plays in Game 3. The manager’s words were plain: “Yeah, I mean obviously it hasn’t been good. He doesn’t feel great.” That is not a pep talk. That is a franchise admitting the engine is smoking.
I am all the way here for the conversation. A .150 hitter who has not touched an extra-base hit in six postseason games does not get a free pass because his contract runs $700 million. Ohtani is 3-for-20 this October with seven strikeouts and a slash line that reads like a September call-up’s nightmare. Since that last home run at Coors Field on August 18, the drought stretches across 110 plate appearances, the longest of his career. The lingering left knee and right biceps issues that sidelined him in September never fully left the building. If he tells Roberts he still does not feel right, the only responsible move is to write someone else’s name in the DH spot Wednesday night.
The Superstar Exception Collides With a .150 Reality
The counter-argument is already forming in the clubhouse and it sounds noble. Max Muncy told ESPN the room is still behind him and promised the big hit is coming. Teoscar Hernandez said any moment Ohtani can come through. Mookie Betts called it hard to watch and insisted the team needs him. Andrew Friedman went further before the series even started, calling Ohtani the most talented player who has ever played this game and saying he retains full confidence every time Ohtani steps in. That is the gravitational pull of a once-in-a-century talent. You do not bench myths lightly.
I hear all of it. I also hear the numbers the Dodgers put up while waiting for the myth to reappear. The lineup is hitting .169 through two NLCS games. They went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position in Game 2 and sit 2-for-26 in those spots for the entire postseason. Freddie Freeman put it clean after the latest loss: it is hard to win games when you only get three hits. Sliding a cold, banged-up Ohtani into the middle of that order again is not loyalty. It is stubbornness dressed up as faith. Roberts already dropped him to fifth in the NLDS against Chris Sale. The precedent exists. The series deficit just made the stakes terminal.
Thirty-six of the last 38 teams to fall behind 0-2 in a best-of-seven got eliminated. That is the cliff the Dodgers are standing on. Game 3 at home against left-hander Robert Gasser is the first chance to crawl back, and every at-bat has to carry weight. A .150 DH who squared to bunt before striking out in the sixth inning Monday is dead weight the offense cannot afford.
De Paula Is Not a Panic Button
If the conversation ends with Ohtani on the bench, the internal candidate is already on the roster. Josue De Paula reached base half the time in a short September stint when Ohtani hit the injured list, posting a .323 average and 1.081 OPS in limited action. He has drawn two walks in three pinch-hit appearances this postseason. That is not a finished product. It is a live bat who does not look overmatched, which is more than I can say for the current version of the cleanup hitter.
Roberts framed the talk correctly. Ohtani earned the conversation. He deserves input on his own body. ESPN’s reporting makes clear the final call still hinges on Ohtani’s self-assessment of those knee and biceps issues. If he says he is healthy enough, the Dodgers will almost certainly run him out there again because the alternative feels radioactive in Los Angeles. That is the trap. The same organization that paused his pitching after July 3 and shut him down for All-Star treatment keeps hoping the October version will suddenly look like the first-half monster who hit .293 with 22 homers. Hope is not a lineup card.
I keep thinking about the quiet part nobody wants to say out loud. The Dodgers did not lose two games in Milwaukee solely because Ohtani went quiet. The entire order went quiet. But you do not dig out of an 0-2 hole by protecting a player’s aura. You dig out by putting the hottest available bats in the highest-leverage spots and living with the noise that follows. Sitting Ohtani for one night does not erase what he is. It acknowledges what he is right now: compromised, slumping, and dragging an already anemic attack deeper into the mud.
The workout day in Los Angeles is the entire hinge. Roberts, Friedman, and Ohtani will close the door and decide whether the greatest two-way force in the sport sits while the season bleeds out. If that door opens and Ohtani is still batting cleanup Wednesday, the Dodgers are betting the rest of October on a feeling instead of the evidence. I would take the evidence. The calendar only gives them five more chances to be wrong about this, and two of them are already gone.
