{"id":299600,"date":"2025-10-13T09:47:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T09:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299600\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T09:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T09:47:17","slug":"why-dodgers-are-pushing-back-shohei-ohtanis-nlcs-pitching-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299600\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Dodgers are pushing back Shohei Ohtani’s NLCS pitching start"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MILWAUKEE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Entering this week\u2019s National League Championship Series<\/a>, the Dodgers\u2019 pitching plan seemed simple.<\/p>\n

After Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> and Tyler Glasnow<\/a> started the final two games of the team\u2019s NL Division Series victory<\/a> over the Philadelphia Phillies, Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and Blake Snell<\/a> were next in line for Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n

All the Dodgers needed to do was slot Snell in for Game 1 on Monday, making him an option to pitch again on four days\u2019 rest in Game 5. Then, they could have Ohtani go in Game 2 on Tuesday, allowing him to pitch before Wednesday\u2019s scheduled off-day (which has been the team\u2019s preference for the two-way star) and be available for another start if the series returns to Milwaukee for Games 6 and 7.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, however, manager Dave Roberts announced a different plan.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Snell will indeed go in Game 1, trying to build upon the 1.38 ERA he posted in his first two outings this postseason.<\/p>\n

But instead of Ohtani in Game 2, it will be Yamamoto who gets the ball \u2014 pushing Ohtani\u2019s next pitching appearance to sometime later this series, Roberts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just don\u2019t know which day,\u201d Roberts said of when Ohtani will get the ball. \u201cBut he\u2019ll pitch at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

That alignment came as a surprise, but also had benefits from the Dodgers\u2019 perspective.<\/p>\n

Unlike Ohtani, who has gotten at least six days off between every one of his pitching outings since the start of July, Yamamoto has routinely pitched on five days\u2019 rest this season. By starting him in Game 2, he can stay on that same schedule to pitch a potential Game 6 \u2014 something the Dodgers would have been less comfortable having Ohtani do.<\/p>\n

By pushing Ohtani back to at least Game 3, of course, the Dodgers will sacrifice their ability to get him two starts in this series. However, even if he pitches in one of the Dodgers\u2019 home games later this week, Ohtani could come out of the bullpen in a potential Game 7 \u2014 the kind of relief opportunity the team had hinted at for weeks down the stretch this season.<\/p>\n

Because Ohtani will make just one pitching start in the NLCS, Roberts said it\u2019s not as imperative that it come before an off-day, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have two other guys that potentially can pitch on regular rest,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo [it\u2019s about] how do you get your best pitchers the most innings in a potential seven-game series?\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of pitching considerations, however, there\u2019s another reason delaying Ohtani\u2019s next pitching outing could also make sense.<\/p>\n

In the NLDS, Ohtani went one for 18 at the plate with nine strikeouts. He looked particularly out of sorts in Game 1, when he struck out four times in what was his first career playoff game both hitting and pitching.<\/p>\n

Coming out of the series, Roberts emphasized the need for Ohtani to \u201crecalibrate\u201d at the plate, noting that the team was \u201cnot gonna win the World Series with that sort of performance\u201d from its biggest star.<\/p>\n

And while Roberts insisted on Sunday that Ohtani\u2019s offensive slump had \u201cno bearing\u201d on the team shuffling its rotation, giving Ohtani two games at the start of the NLCS to focus solely on hitting certainly won\u2019t hurt his efforts to straighten out his swing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect a different output from Shohei on the offensive side this series,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

For at the least the next couple days, that will be his only objective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Entering this week\u2019s National League Championship Series, the Dodgers\u2019 pitching plan seemed simple. After Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":299601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[27043,1582,276,2385,2442,1910,2961,224,5337,152556,138144,67884,26804,5950,6166,4712,22799,3007,2452,20410],"class_list":{"0":"post-299600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-blake-snell","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-next-pitching-start","18":"tag-nlcs","19":"tag-rest","20":"tag-roberts","21":"tag-season","22":"tag-series","23":"tag-shohei-ohtani","24":"tag-start","25":"tag-team","26":"tag-week","27":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115366228759458565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}