How bad had Shohei Ohtani’s recent hitting slump gotten?

Bad enough, that manager Dave Roberts said the two-way star will be out of the Dodgers’ lineup –– at least as a hitter –– the next two nights.

While Ohtani started to turn a corner Tuesday, going 2-for-4 in the Dodgers’ loss to the Giants with his first home run in more than two weeks, Roberts said the slugger wouldn’t be in the batting order when he makes his next pitching start on Wednesday, nor the day after in Thursday’s series finale.

It will mark the first time in Ohtani’s Dodgers tenure that he doesn’t hit in consecutive games (excluding a brief stint he spent on the paternity list last year).

Roberts believes the break will benefit the 31-year-old as he tries to emerge from a prolonged cold spell offensively.

“I think it’s just more of, kind of thinking that it might just be a good thing to take a little bit of a load off his plate offensively,” Roberts said before Tuesday’s game. “Letting his body recover a little bit, as far as (not) being a two-way player for a couple days. Playing more of the longer view, potentially giving him a reset on the offensive side.”

Entering Tuesday, Ohtani certainly seemed like he could use a reset as a hitter. He began the day mired in a 4-for-38 slump over his previous 11 games. He was batting just .200 over the last month overall. And he had only one home run in 108 plate appearances, a stunning power outage for a four-time MVP coming off back-to-back 50-homer campaigns.

In each of those last two seasons, of course, Ohtani wasn’t also taking on full-time pitching duties as he is right now –– sporting an MLB-best 0.97 ERA in his first six starts.

And while he disputed the notion that his pitching is directly causing his batting slump, both he and team officials have acknowledged the added difficulty that comes with trying to balance both roles, especially when his swing is as out of whack as it appears right now.

“I think we all came in knowing that we had to read and react,” Roberts said of the challenge of trying to manage Ohtani’s workload. “It was gonna be fluid. It should be. It’s very unique … So, no one thought it was gonna be easy.”

No one, of course, seemed to think it would be this difficult either.

Which is why Roberts said he didn’t want to change course, even after Tuesday’s two-hit performance.

“I think the fatigue (of his workload) is bleeding into the mechanics (of his hitting),” Roberts said. “I think that most players get that towards the end of the summer. And now I’m learning, managing Shohei, it has probably shown itself a little earlier, as far as the tax on pitching and all that comes with it to the hitting too.”

Though Ohtani has looked off at the plate for a while –– his current .797 OPS, though still well above league average, is his lowest to this point of a season since 2022 –– his previous couple games leading up to Tuesday had been especially poor. 

Not only did he record consecutive hitless performances Sunday and Monday, but he also started expanding his strike zone and abandoning any semblance of plate discipline. Roberts called it a “classic example” of a slumping hitter “trying to swing out of” their struggles. He cited it as the inciting factor behind the decision to potentially give Ohtani a more extended break offensively this week.

“For me, with any hitter, when the quality of at-bat starts to go down consistently, I think that’s a telling sign there needs to be a break,” Roberts said. “Because you’re just not able to –– whether it’s the mechanics, the mind –– just stay within your game plan, and then the chase starts to spike.”

Ohtani will still be plenty busy Wednesday, as he tries to continue a scorching start as a pitcher that has put him firmly in the early-season Cy Young conversation. 

But come Thursday, Roberts said he wanted the superstar to show up to the park later than normal, get plenty of rest and recovery time, and prepare only for a possible pinch-hit at-bat late in the game.

“He’s still calibrating on this kind of newfound two-way player (role) in today’s day,” Roberts said, highlighting how much has changed (both in the sport and with Ohtani) since he was last a full-time two-way player with the Angels from 2021-2023. “I just can’t take for granted what’s on his plate. So I’m trying to be sensitive to that.”

Roberts insisted that, long-term this year, keeping Ohtani in a full-time two-way role still “definitely feels sustainable,” and that the potential two-day reset should only provide upside in his bid to get back on track this year.

Right now, he said, he is simply trying to be proactive as Ohtani’s attempts to rectify his early-season slump.

“He’s always gonna want to do more. He always has that sense of responsibility to his teammates, that he wants to be out there both ways,” Roberts said. “So I’ve learned that I have to be proactive and take it out of his hands, like most great players.”

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