During a season full of injuries, the Dodgers are feeling the biggest pain of all with the finish line so near.
It might have taken 175 games, counting the postseason, but Shohei Ohtani has finally joined the medical report with a shoulder injury that occurred in Saturday’s 4-2 victory in Game 2 of the World Series.
With a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, the Dodgers need to come out on top just two more times for their first title since 2020 and their first one after a full 162-game regular season since 1988.
The Dodgers revealed Sunday that Ohtani will play in Game 3 after manager Dave Roberts originally said his star player came away with a “subluxation” of his left shoulder while trying to steal second base in the seventh inning Saturday.
“I think that he's obviously very well aware of himself and his body," Roberts said Sunday while admitting Ohtani will have to tap into his pain-tolerance abilities. "If he feels good enough to go, I see no reason he won't be in there,”
How productive Ohtani can be after his partially separated shoulder remains to be seen. Through two games of his first World Series so far, Ohtani has been quiet by going 1-for-8 with a double and a walk. The highly-anticipated duel against the Yankees’ Judge has been a anticlimactic, with the New York Star going 1-for-9 with six strikeouts.
The Dodgers are ahead in the World Series because of better lineup depth, better overall starting pitching and a deeper bullpen that walked a tight-wire act in Game 2 before coming away victorious after the Yankees scored a run in the ninth inning and had the bases loaded before making the last out.
The Dodgers pride themselves on roster depth and it has led them to the cusp of a championship this season.
The issues with the pitching staff are well documented. The Dodgers are slugging it out in the playoffs with just three healthy starters: Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler. Flaherty wasn’t on board until July 30 trade, Yamamoto missed three months with a shoulder injury and Buehler returned from two years away following his second Tommy John surgery. Then he spent more time away with a hip injury.
Starters not available in the postseason: Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone, Bobby Miller, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Emmet Sheehan and River Ryan.
“I do think it is something where this team has dealt with some adversity this year, and we've been punched a few times with various injuries,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “It's had some little speed bump effect.”
The starting lineup has been met with its own challenges. Mookie Betts missed three months with a fractured hand and Freddie Freeman missed 10 days when his young son had health challenges, then played the last month on a badly sprained right ankle.
Max Muncy had an oblique injury that cost him three months and Miguel Rojas has been dealing with an injury all season that will require sports hernia surgery in the offseason.
If the Dodgers have learned anything through the personnel scramble it is that somebody is willing and capable of filling the void.
“When you see him come of the field and the trainer is holding his arm, obviously there is a level of concern,” Freeman said of Ohtani. “But we’ll see how it is the next couple of days. ... When you have a group like this, they picked me up when I have been down (and) we’ll try to do the same for him.”
Freeman knows best of all that just because you are in the lineup, doesn’t mean you are at your full capabilities. He hobbled through National League Division Series with four hits, while playing in four of the five games. He played in four of the six NL Championship Series, collecting two hits in Game 1, then going 1-for-15 over the next three contests.
Now Ohtani will go the grit-your-teeth route and give what he can out of the leadoff spot in Game 3 at New York. His mere presence in the lineup, and the willingness to give whatever he has left, could be just the inspiration the rest of the Dodgers lineup needs.
“He's the best player in the game, and to see him on the ground in pain, it's not a good feeling for sure,” the Dodgers’ Tommy Edman said.
Edman has been one of the major reasons the Dodgers have been able to thrive with so many injury issues. He has played center field and shortstop since his arrival at the trade deadline, when he was on the injured list after wrist surgery.
Edman took over at shortstop in the postseason as Rojas has struggled through his injury. Kike Hernandez has leaned into his versatility to play all over the field with Freeman and second baseman Gavin Lux at less than 100 percent.
Not only has the club delivered up and down the roster, Roberts has made all the right moves after the front office did its part to fortify the roster with Flaherty, Edman and right-hander Michael Kopech in trade-deadline moves that weren’t earth-shaking at the time but have been vital.
So maybe they won’t have peak Ohtani in the lineup for Game 3, but the presumptive NL MVP intends to be there and the Dodgers intend to rise to the occasion.
“Yeah, it’s the World Series,” Freeman said. “I think we will all be up and ready to go for Game 3.”
