Two things can be true: The Dodgers’ season ended prematurely and, for Shohei Ohtani, the offseason couldn’t come soon enough.
Thursday’s elimination — a no-doubt-about-it sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers, who vanquished the Dodgers in the same fashion Ohtani and Co. had summarily eliminated them last season — was apparently the only way to get the two-way superstar out of the lineup.
Now he can get some much-needed rest and recovery, a reality check and, possibly, some surgical procedures to repair the knee and biceps injuries that plagued him this season.
Ohtani didn’t rule anything out in his postgame scrum, several rows deep, in front of his locker after the Dodgers’ 6-4 defeat in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.
“Hard to tell at this point,” the 32-year-old Ohtani said in Japanese, via interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s something that’s going to be analyzed, discussed over the offseason, and see if that’s a viable thing to do.”
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Hopefully, for the Dodgers’ sake and for baseball’s, Ohtani and his team will see their way to a reasonable load management plan. Hopefully they’ll find a viable injury management strategy.
Especially if he continues to pitch, as Ohtani said he plans to: “Yes, definitely, and looking forward to having a better season.”
Hopefully this bumpy season — his first as a Dodger to end short of the championship following the 2024 and 2025 title runs — will make Ohtani better. Wiser. More willing to listen to his body and to communicate what it’s telling him with the ball club that relies on him so much.
“I’ll always trust Shohei,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s the best player on the planet, and he’s not completely healthy. But I just give him a lot of respect for not running from it, still wanting to participate, still wanting to play when he’s not 100%.”
But hopefully when Ohtani’s knee barks next time, he won’t pitch through it. Hopefully when his right arm tightens up, he’ll step out of the box. Even — or especially — if it takes longer than a 15-day IL stint to make him right.
Hopefully he’s learned that irrespective of a sense of duty or pride or a selfish streak, the cold-hitting fact is that a compromised version of Ohtani leaves the Dodgers’ whole team — a $400 million investment — compromised, as it was this postseason.
“I don’t really want to take it for granted for the opportunity to be able to play with these guys,” Ohtani said. “But honestly, I think I’m just very disappointed.”
In eight playoff games against the Atlanta Braves and Brewers, Ohtani hit .192 (five for 26). He struck out 10 times. He didn’t get an extra-base hit or drive in a run until Thursday, in the season finale, which reminded us of Ohtani’s power — he walloped his first home run since Aug. 18, a three-run missile in the second inning that traveled 428 feet — and his pain.
Roberts looked, for a moment, like a genius for continuing to keep Ohtani in the lineup — and to pencil him in as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter after batting him sixth on Wednesday.
For that one shining moment.
But Ohtani also struck out three times Thursday — made to look foolish in a much-too-familiar way.
The Dodgers needed a healthy Ohtani to deal with a young, hungry ballclub like the Brewers.
To have a chance against a team that was, as Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández said, “almost playing perfect baseball,” they needed him dialed in and not tinkering, not staying late searching.
They need the version of him that delivered the perfect game a year ago, his three-home-run, 10-strikeout masterpiece that sent Milwaukee home in Game 4 of the NLCS.
“Ohtani is arguably the best player in the world,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.
“He’s proven that to us. He had the greatest game I’ve ever seen played by an individual player last year against us.”
The Dodgers need that guy striking fear into opponents. Not him striking out, or getting stranded helplessly on base.
And they got a glimpse of that guy Thursday with that second-inning home run, a shot that had him throwing his arms up and screaming toward his dugout, as emotive as we’ve seen him, relieved and exulting after giving the Dodgers a 4-0 lead — and a fleeting expectation that they’d play a Game 5 on Friday.
“It was a lot of pent-up anger, frustration,” Roberts said. “It was the best ball he hit in probably two, three months, and it was a big hit.”
“It was like,” Max Muncy said, “that’s the swing we’ve been waiting for.”
Now we all wait for baseball to return — and then to learn what this season taught Ohtani, one of the most unique athletes in the history of the game.
“Not quite satisfied with how things shaped up on the pitching side at the end of the year,” Ohtani said. “... I haven’t been able to really come to grips in terms of what I’ve learned overall. It’s something that I’m going to kind of go back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, training program, and see what I can come up with for next season.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.