LOS ANGELES -- Shohei Ohtani decided to skip his last pitching start before the All-Star break and receive treatment on his problematic left knee, but he was still in the Los Angeles Dodgers' lineup on Friday and somehow managed to homer in his first at-bat.
The knee, it turns out, does not bother him when he hits. It's only a problem when he pitches, a function, Ohtani surmised, of his mechanics. He will remain in the lineup for what remains of the Dodgers' weekend series against the division rival Arizona Diamondbacks, then get his knee drained and receive a pain-relieving injection after Sunday's game in L.A.
Rather than take part in the All-Star Game the ensuing week, Ohtani, who led the majors in fan votes for the starting lineup, will use the off time to get right. He said he expects to resume pitching like normal.
"The goal is to be able to throw according to regular schedule," said Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter after the Dodgers' 9-3 loss. "Although I could've started today, it would've still been pushing the envelope a little bit. But my every intention is to use the off days to make sure I'm in a good place to be able to be in the rotation."
Ohtani spent Thursday in a lengthy conversation with Dodgers officials, who pitched him on the idea of skipping his last start and ultimately got him to accept.
Ohtani, five days removed from his 32nd birthday, left a June 11 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates early because of irritation in that left knee, the same knee that underwent surgery to address a congenital condition called bipartite patella in September 2019. He had the next day off and has been managing it ever since.
"The knee flares up, sometimes it calms down," Ohtani said. "There's a lot of just kind of up and down."
Ohtani has remained a productive hitter through that, slashing .247/.350/.529 with eight home runs in 23 games since the initial flare-up, but he has not attempted a stolen base in that time. On the mound, he has tweaked the position of where he lands on the slope of the mound to compensate for the knee and has not been as effective, allowing 10 runs (nine earned) in 18 innings over three starts.
"He's been managing this quite well, the knee," said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who staged a bullpen game in Ohtani's absence. "So if there's a chance that we could kind of be proactive and get it drained and do whatever we need to do to try to manage it, along with the rest for the All-Star break, we were going to do that."
Ohtani went into this season with ambitions of winning his first Cy Young Award and was already at a disadvantage from a workload standpoint while residing in a strict six-man rotation. Ohtani has put up a 1.79 ERA this season, good enough to rank second behind Jacob Misiorowski for the lowest in the majors, except Ohtani doesn't have enough innings to qualify. He has compiled 85⅔ innings this season, ranked 85th in the majors. By the time the All-Star break arrives, he will probably fall further down the list.
The Dodgers presenting him with their plans of skipping his start and Ohtani accepting might be a sign that he will not compromise his availability for the stretch run in pursuit of a trophy.
Asked if that was a relief, Roberts said: "I wouldn't say relief. I think that, No. 1, he's always said, we've always said, the goal is October, for all of our players. With that, yeah, he's had the Cy Young in mind, and understandably so. But nothing is going to come in front of being healthy for October. So for him to concede and miss a start for the best interest of him and the team, that's not a surprise."
Ohtani had also been dealing with a blister in his pitching hand and tightness in his right biceps, but both those issues have seemingly subsided. The Dodgers don't know how they will line up their rotation coming out of the All-Star break, but Roberts expects Ohtani to be in the lineup for the team's first game at Yankee Stadium next Friday.
If this were October, Roberts said, Ohtani would have pitched.
He added: "I think we all know with where we're at, who he is as a player, if there's opportunities to be extra cautious and mindful, it's just prudent."