LOS ANGELES — In the brief moment between when Shohei Ohtani completed his fifth inning of no-hit baseball as a pitcher and prepared to lead off the next half-inning as a hitter, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts seized on an opportunity to gather intel.
Ohtani had required only 68 pitches Tuesday night to accumulate 18 outs against the Philadelphia Phillies, who feature one of the sport’s most imposing lineups. The sixth inning qualified as uncharted territory in his return from a second elbow repair. But when Roberts asked Ohtani how he felt, the two-way star answered in the affirmative.
It didn’t matter.
Ohtani exited as a pitcher, then watched as rookie left-hander Justin Wrobleski surrendered a four-run lead to a string of five batters. Three innings later, after Ohtani clobbered his 50th home run, Blake Treinen surrendered a game-winning three-run homer to No. 9-hitting backup catcher Rafael Marchan, handing the Dodgers another loss in another back-and-forth game against the Phillies. This last one, decided by a 9-6 score, cast more doubt on the team’s bullpen and raised additional questions about how long the Dodgers might push Ohtani in October.
Roberts said he only asked Ohtani how he felt in the middle of the fifth because he wanted to collect information “for the future.”
The present had already been decided.
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“He wasn’t gonna go back out,” Roberts said. “We’ve been very steadfast in every situation as far as inning for his usage — from one inning to two to three to four to five. We haven’t deviated from that. So I was trying to get his pulse for going forward, where he’s at, continuing to go to the sixth inning. And he says, ‘Feel OK.’ That was good. But I’m not gonna have a plan for five innings, and then he pitches well and say, ‘Hey, now you’re gonna go for six innings.’ He’s too important. And if something does happen, then that’s on me for changing it.
“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. That’s just the way it goes, and guys gotta do their jobs.”
Ohtani struck out five and allowed just one baserunner — on a first-inning walk to Bryce Harper — through the first five innings against a Phillies team that clinched the National League East on Monday and boasts the majors’ highest OPS since the start of August. His fastball averaged 99.2 mph. His sweeper, Roberts said, “was great.” Ohtani was starting for the first time in 11 days but hadn’t completed five innings since Aug. 27. That start saw him reach a season-high 87 pitches, 19 more than he threw on Tuesday.
“As a player, I do want to pitch as long as possible,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But I also understand and respect the decision that the front office and the manager makes.”
That decision, Roberts insisted, had been predetermined.
“This is a different situation,” Roberts said. “It’s been different this whole year. He’s two players in one. So for me to do something and deviate, and if something happens, then we lose two players. And so if the conversation isn’t had, I’m not gonna do it. We haven’t done it all year, so, I’m not gonna do it tonight.”
Instead, Wrobleski inherited a 4-0 lead and promptly surrendered it. Marchan, Harrison Bader and Kyle Schwarber notched three straight one-out singles to load the bases; Harper followed with a two-run double; and Brandon Marsh cranked a three-run homer to give the Phillies a 5-4 lead. Roberts spilled out of the dugout for a pitching change in that moment and was vociferously booed by an announced crowd of 44,063. The boos continued after Max Kepler added a soler homer two batters later.
Ohtani made it a one-run game by lifting a 430-foot home run to right field while leading off the eighth, making him the first player since Alex Rodriguez in 2002 to reach 50 home runs in consecutive seasons. Five batters later, an Alex Call sacrifice fly tied the score, prompting Treinen to check in for the ninth.
Treinen, a key cog in a bullpen that carried the Dodgers to a championship last fall, retired the first two batters before unraveling. Weston Wilson doubled, Bryson Stott walked, and then Marchan hit a low line drive that hit the side of the right-field bullpen gate, ricocheted off the top of the shorter fence adjacent to it and bounced into the stands. The Dodgers had failed to capitalize on another San Diego Padres loss, their lead in the NL West still only two games. Their bullpen had imploded once more.
“Sometimes you look back and try to understand what’s going on,” Treinen said. “A lot of us have had our moments this year. Sometimes there’s no words, no reasons to describe it. 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.”
The Dodgers’ bullpen stands as a major concern heading into the postseason, one the team hopes to make up for with a deep rotation that stretches to six members. Ohtani will undoubtedly be a key part of that solution, but how long he’s pushed remains an open question.
Roberts won’t be making that decision alone.
“I mean, 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.”
