Benching a Slumping Shohei Ohtani Would Be the Dodgers' Panic Move

He hit .157 over his last 18 regular-season games, but the Dodgers' fix on the bench is a rookie who made Sunday's last out.

Shohei Ohtani should bat second for the Dodgers in Atlanta on Tuesday, slump and all. Benching him for Game 3 of a tied division series would be the panic move, and a team chasing a third straight championship can't be the side that flinches first.

The slump is real, and I won't pretend it isn't. Over his last 18 regular-season games, he hit .157. He struck out 29 times in 70 at-bats in that stretch. His last home run came on Aug. 18. But sitting him means swapping a four-time MVP who's chasing bad pitches for a rookie the Braves already got out with the game on the line.

Sunday's 3-2 loss at Dodger Stadium left the best-of-five National League Division Series tied at a game apiece, the Los Angeles Times reported, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn't wobble afterward. “He'll be in there Game 3,” Roberts said of Ohtani, the Times reported. He's right, and it isn't sentiment talking.

A Times column on Monday wondered aloud about pulling the bat from Ohtani's hands, and it said it would like to see what rookie Josue De Paula could do. Think about how De Paula's Sunday went: he pinch-hit for Tommy Edman with the Dodgers down a run and fouled out to end the game.

Look at what Roberts actually diagnosed. “If you look at the at-bats, there's a lot of chase,” he said after the loss, per the Times. Chasing is a hitter's problem with a hitter's fix, and the fix has already shown up. In the fifth inning Sunday, Ohtani stayed on a 95-mph four-seamer from Atlanta reliever Dylan Lee and slapped it into left field, one of his two singles in the series.

The Times has reported that biceps, knee and neck trouble took the ball out of his hand as a pitcher this season. At the plate, the team's word is simple. “I haven't heard anything other than he feels fine,” Roberts said, though he allowed that Ohtani might be pressing because he doesn't feel perfect. A star who's pressing needs at-bats, and a seat on the bench in Game 3 won't loosen anybody up.

The Dodgers already have a guy who shows what riding out an October funk can look like. Freddie Freeman, 37, has spent weeks hunting for his swing. He's now got three hits over his last seven at-bats, and one of them, on Sunday, was his first home run since Sept. 2.

Atlanta is already testing the Dodgers. In the third inning Sunday, the Braves walked leadoff man Mookie Betts on four pitches, and Ohtani followed with a pop-up. Fine. Bench him, and the Braves learn the Dodgers believe that pop-up more than they believe in their own star. Keep him there, and Atlanta has to keep making that bet against the best hitter of his generation, in a series that could run five games. I'd want the Braves making it every time.

Then there's Chris Sale, the Braves' ace, who starts Game 3 on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Ohtani is three for 15 against him in his career. That's a .200 average, over a sample you could fit on an index card, and it's still better than the .157 everyone keeps waving around.

Make Sale get him out. If the Dodgers scratch Ohtani before the first pitch, Atlanta won't have to solve him at all. The Dodgers will have done it for them.

Source: Los Angeles Times, retrieved October 5, 2026.