Season At A Glance
The Dodgers May Have Finally Found the
Balance Shohei Ohtani Needs
05/15/26
For the better part of two months, the conversation surrounding Shohei Ohtani has sounded a little like someone nervously checking the weather every fifteen minutes before a road trip.
Too many innings. Too many at-bats. Too much pressure. Too much swinging. Too much everything.
And somewhere underneath all of it sat the unavoidable reality that the Dodgers were attempting something baseball has never really seen handled at this scale before: asking the most talented player in the sport to simultaneously carry a lineup and front a rotation while trying to survive the marathon of another championship season.
Naturally, panic arrived right on schedule.
So when it was announced before Tuesday night’s game that Ohtani would pitch but not hit — and would also sit out entirely the following day — some people treated it like an emergency adjustment.
It wasn’t.
If anything, it was confirmation that the Dodgers have been quietly planning this for a long time.
Back in mid-April, Andrew Friedman practically laid the blueprint out in public if you listened closely enough.
“It doesn’t make sense for him to go wire to wire — pitch or hit or play every day, pitching every week,” Friedman said at the time. “That’s hard, and so we do need to mix some rest in there.”
That hardly sounded like an organization caught off guard by the demands being placed on Ohtani. It sounded like a front office fully aware that asking a player to do impossible things still requires some level of human maintenance.
Friedman even hinted then that rest days might not always look traditional. Maybe Ohtani rests before pitching. Maybe after. Maybe he becomes what Friedman jokingly described as a “silver bullet” off the bench late in games.
At the time, it sounded more theoretical than immediate.
Now it looks very real.
And judging by what unfolded Tuesday night against the Giants, it may end up being one of the smartest adjustments the Dodgers make all season.
Freed entirely from worrying about leading off games, taking five plate appearances or trying to drag a slumping offense uphill by himself, Ohtani looked frighteningly locked in on the mound.
Seven shutout innings. Four hits allowed. Eight strikeouts. An ERA sitting below one through seven starts.
More importantly, he looked fresh.
Not just physically. Mentally.
“I just did what I know I had to do today,” Ohtani said afterward, “collaborating with the pitching coach and Will Smith, just reading and reacting with the hitters’ swings.”
Simple answer. Very complicated outcome for the rest of baseball.
Because if the Dodgers are truly finding a sustainable balance between Ohtani the hitter and Ohtani the pitcher, the ceiling for this team changes considerably.
And make no mistake, Ohtani absolutely has his sights set on becoming the best pitcher in baseball.
At this point, arguing otherwise starts becoming difficult.
Through seven starts, he owns an ERA under one while routinely sitting in the upper-90s deep into outings. Roberts has openly talked about Ohtani becoming increasingly “hyper-focused” on the preparation side of pitching, and the results are beginning to reflect that obsession.
The scary part? Ohtani himself still thinks there’s room for improvement.
“The feeling is pretty good,” he said. “I feel really good with my pitches. But today, the deep fly ball to end the seventh inning, that could have really swayed my ERA. So I think there’s some luck involved as well.”
That answer probably tells you everything about why he’s different.
Most pitchers with a microscopic ERA spend their time protecting it.
Ohtani talks about the one fly ball that almost changed it.
At the same time, he also acknowledged something that has become increasingly obvious over the last few weeks: the offensive side has not fully looked like Shohei Ohtani.
“First and foremost, the fact that I’m not injured, that’s a good thing,” Ohtani said. “I do want to contribute more offensively. I haven’t done so this year, but I’m looking forward to doing that.”
And that may be the most important quote of all.
Because while the Dodgers would happily accept Cy Young-caliber production from Ohtani every fifth day, they are still going to need his bat once the calendar turns toward October.
That is where this evolving plan starts making real sense.
Periodic rest may not only preserve Ohtani physically. It may finally allow the Dodgers to get the best version of both players living inside the same uniform.
And honestly, Thursday night, the game after he pitched, may have revealed another benefit that cannot really be measured by analytics or workload charts.
On his scheduled day off, Ohtani spent much of the evening in the dugout alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Justin Wrobleski, laughing between innings and casually watching the game unfold. Just watching his body language told the story. The usual intensity was gone. The constant locked-in stare had softened. For once, Shohei Ohtani did not look like he was carrying the weight of two jobs at the same time.
Truthfully, it was refreshing to see him without the game face on for once.
And judging from the relaxed smile that seemed to appear a little more often than usual, it probably felt good for him too.
Especially now that Mookie Betts has returned.
There is already growing discussion that Betts should reclaim the leadoff role, allowing Ohtani to slide comfortably back into the two-hole where the lineup flowed naturally. It worked before, and with Ohtani potentially receiving more strategic rest days moving forward, it could help stabilize both the batting order and Ohtani’s workload simultaneously.
And perhaps most importantly, it could help calm a fan base currently treating every Dodgers slump like a five-alarm fire.
Tuesday night served as a useful reminder that, despite the ugly stretch recently, the larger picture has not suddenly collapsed.
As Roberts likes to say, “The sky isn’t falling.”
In fact, with a more sustainable blueprint for Ohtani now starting to emerge, blue skies may not be that far away after all.
