The big story heading into a big Game 3 of the NLCS was whether the Los Angeles Dodgers might actually bench their reigning back-to-back NL MVP, Shohei Ohtani.
Thought by many to be the greatest MLB player of all time, Ohtani has hit .150 this postseason and has no extra-base hits. The player who hit three home runs in a single playoff game last fall is nowhere to be found.
Yet when Wednesday rolled around, the Dodgers ultimately kept their superstar in the lineup; he will hit sixth as the Dodgers fight to keep their season alive, down 0-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers.
In a classic screed hours before Game 3 on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, host Michael Wilbon ripped into baseball media for taking seriously the possibility that the Dodgers would actually sit Ohtani.
“It was never a consideration of pulling him out of the damn lineup,” Wilbon said. “This is what’s awful about today’s ‘reporting.’ That people have no sense of skepticism. They’re just like lap dogs. And whatever people say into a microphone, they [take].
“What? Would you and I have thought that Cal Ripken was going to come out of a lineup if the Orioles were in the World Series? No. We would have turned around, we would have laughed on the way back to the press box, and reported what we knew to be true. This is nonsense. Shohei Ohtani was never leaving the lineup. He is hurt, and you gotta go with him. He’s Shohei. It’s the greatest player in baseball.”
Michael Wilbon is appalled that anyone took the Dodgers seriously about benching Ohtani:
“This is what’s awful about today’s ‘reporting.’ People have no sense of skepticism, they’re just like lap dogs.”
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— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 14, 2026
The news was initially reported by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo, two veteran baseball reporters who cited an anonymous “team source.” The report came following comments from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts after Game 2, revealing the Dodgers would do “what’s best” for them and Ohtani in Game 3.
At ESPN, Alden Gonzalez published a similar story, but explained that Ohtani’s status for Game 3 would hinge on his health rather than any strategic decision by the team. The Dodgers would “continue playing him if he deems himself healthy,” Gonzalez wrote.
Though Wilbon can often be performatively grumpy about the state of modern sports and media, he made this point multiple times this week. Many sports reporters today are evaluated based on how often they can break original news, which incentivizes them to publish hearsay or hypotheticals far more often. Reporters also sometimes feel pressure to report what they hear from sources in order to maintain relationships with them.
When Wilbon and his longtime co-host Tony Kornheiser worked at the Washington Post in the 1980s and 90s, they were instead evaluated on the quality and accuracy of their work. The newspaper was not nearly as strapped for cash as it is today, so it could afford to operate with more skepticism.
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