LOS ANGELES – For the second straight year as a Dodger, Shohei Ohtani created a brand new 50/50 club on a night only he could author.
Now the only player ever to hit 50 homers and throw 50 strikeouts in the same season after reaching those marks Tuesday night, he is, again, defying the limits of what was once thought humanly possible.
But he isn’t defying the marching orders.
After throwing five no-hit innings on just 68 pitches against the Phillies, Ohtani hopped off the mound with a 4-0 lead, walked toward the dugout and readied himself to hit in the bottom of the frame. A brief conversation with Dave Roberts ensued. The Dodgers manager asked him how his body was feeling. Ohtani said he felt good.
It didn’t matter.
“He wasn’t gonna go back out,” Roberts said.
The chat, Roberts insisted, was only to gain intel for the future, in case the Dodgers ultimately decide to push Ohtani past five innings in October. Right now, that’s a hard ceiling.
And on Tuesday, like so many days before it for the Dodgers’ leaky bullpen, that spelled doom.
The meltdown was immediate. The relievers who followed Ohtani’s five spotless frames surrendered eight hits and nine runs in four innings in a 9-6 loss, as a second straight back-and-forth battle going Philadelphia’s way.
“I’m not gonna have a plan for five innings, and then he pitches well and say, ‘OK, now you’re gonna go for six innings,’” Roberts said. “He’s too important. And if something does happen, then that’s on me for changing it. And we haven’t done that all year, so I’m not gonna do that right now. I would’ve loved to have had him go out there. But if our conversation was, ‘If he’s efficient, he can go to the sixth inning, that’s a different conversation.’ But it was a hard five innings.”
For the 44,063 fans in attendance who watched the game unravel, the final four innings were harder.
A bullpen that has consistently self-destructed in recent weeks, blowing more saves than it has converted since the beginning of August, saved one of its most alarming implosions for a night that could have been a celebration of the Dodgers’ two-way sensation.
After no-hitting the Phillies for five innings, Ohtani launched an eighth-inning blast that made him the first player since Alex Rodriguez in 2001 to record back-to-back 50 homer seasons. In two seasons as a Dodger, he now has the franchise’s only two 50-homer seasons.
Both his early work on the mound and his late work at the plate gave the Dodgers a chance to win. A bullpen that coughed up three home runs for the second straight night ensured it wouldn’t.
“They’re lacking confidence,” Roberts said. “They all wanna pitch well, they all want the opportunities, and they’re not making good pitches when they need to, a little careful at times. I think for me, I believe in the talent. But right now, they just don’t have the confidence that they need to have to be consistent.”
The Dodgers won’t sacrifice Ohtani’s health to counter those bullpen woes.
They have carefully brought Ohtani along in his first season back on the mound since undergoing elbow surgery in September 2023. He has meticulously and painstakingly worked his way up from one-inning outings, to two, to three, to four and finally to five, a limit the Dodgers are not comfortable surpassing during the regular season — even if he’s efficient, even if the stuff is still crisp, even if the options behind him provoke unease.
“As a player, I do want to pitch as long as possible,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “But I also understand and respect the decision that the front office and the manager makes. Ultimately, that’s what a player is supposed to do, is to make sure that you fulfill the role, the given role that you’re assigned.”
Right now, that role means handing the ball to a group of relievers who aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. The night prior, the Dodgers bullpen blew a 3-1 lead in the seventh inning. When the Dodgers tied it back up in the seventh, they allowed a go-ahead homer in the eighth. When the Dodgers tied it again in the ninth, the Phillies won it in the 10th.
Tuesday’s collapse was even more crushing.
Ohtani retired 15 of the 16 batters he faced, allowing only one walk. He threw five strikeouts, reached 101.7 mph with his fastball — tied for the fastest pitch he has thrown in his career — and left with a four-run advantage.
Six batters later, that lead was gone after three straight singles, a two-run double and a go-ahead three-run homer. Rookie Justin Wrobleski — one of five Dodgers relievers with an ERA over 6.00 this month, many of whom they hope to be counting on in high leverage this October — allowed five runs and recorded one out.
When Roberts emerged from the dugout to take the ball, he was met by a chorus of boos from a crowd that wished Ohtani was still on the mound. But the Dodgers aren’t willing to risk losing two star players in one by pushing Ohtani further than the agreed-upon plan, and Roberts isn’t going to deviate from the decision his club has made.
“If there’s conversations of the powers that be — and Shohei included — if everyone’s in the conversation saying, ‘Hey, we’ll push him,’ that’s a different conversation,” Roberts said. “But what I knew going in was that he was gonna be five innings, so that’s where it stops.”
From there, it was déjà vu.
The Dodgers answered back with a late flurry, tying the game in the eighth. One inning later, backup catcher Rafael Marchan launched a game-winning three-run homer off Blake Treinen, one of the club’s most reliable relievers on their march to last season’s World Series championship. It was Marchán’s second home run of the season; it was Treinen’s third straight appearance that resulted in a loss.
“Sometimes there’s no words, no reasons to describe it,” Treinen said. “I know it’s frustrating to the fans. I mean, I can promise you from the bottom of my heart we’re trying our darnedest every single night. There’s nothing we haven’t done, there’s no stone we haven’t unturned. It’s not an effort thing. It’s not a preparation thing. It is literally just sometimes things aren’t working, and I wish for their sake, for our team, our organization, our ownership, that I’m better in those spots. I know that’s in the heart of my teammates, too. Sometimes you just don’t have an answer.”
With only 11 games left in the regular season, a two-game lead in the division and the possibility of a first-round bye slipping further away by the day, they’re running out of time to find it.
Treinen is 0-4 with a 9.53 ERA in September, though he’s not alone in his misfortune. Tanner Scott, who signed a $72-million deal this offseason, also has an ERA over 9.00 this month. After surrendering a walk-off homer in Baltimore earlier this month, Scott lamented that baseball hates him right now. Meanwhile, Kirby Yates, the other reliever the Dodgers signed this winter to help in high leverage, has a 7.94 ERA in September.
“For me, it’s trying to get these guys to understand that what’s done is the past has to be behind them, and they have to have a short memory,” Roberts said. “And I think that’s the thing that they’re having a hard time getting past, the short memory of, ‘Today’s a new day, it’s a new opportunity,’ and go out there and impose your will, be aggressive, and not be afraid to fail.’ And I think that’s where we have to get the guys to, as a unit.”
A healthy rotation inspires more confidence. The Dodgers employ more starting pitchers than they’ll need come October, when Emmet Sheehan could move into a relief role. Sheehan has a 1.48 ERA over his last four outings. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow both have ERAs under 1.40 this month. Blake Snell has struck out 17 batters in 11 September innings. Clayton Kershaw is 10-2 with a 3.53 ERA this year.
And after allowing just one run on five hits with 19 strikeouts in 13.2 innings over his last three outings, Ohtani now has a 3.29 ERA, a new 50/50 season and the potential to showcase both his home run power and his ability to miss bats this October.
“We’ve been very diligent in how we’ve managed him,” Roberts said, “and I think because of that, we’re in a very good spot today.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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