Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani has been hampered for weeks by both a left knee and a right biceps injury, bad enough that the Dodgers have finally decided to place him on the injured list. He sat out Wednesday's 14-1 win over the Reds, missing his sixth game in the Dodgers' last seven, and the ballclub finally figured it was time to officially IL him.
As a two-way player, Ohtani will go on the 15-day IL, rather than a 10-day stint for pitchers. That means he won't be back until the last week of the regular season at the earliest. This marks Ohtani's first stint on the IL as a Dodger.
"It was more just really huddling up and saying, 'Hey, how are you going to feel on Friday? How are you going to feel on Saturday?'" manager Dave Roberts said (via MLB.com). "Talking to the doctors and training staff, there was not much certainty that he'd be in a much better place. With that, just taking it off the table seemed like the best course of action."
As a corresponding move, the Dodgers will summon Josue De Paula from Double-A. The rich get richer here, as he's considered one of baseball's top prospects (MLB.com ranked him No. 6 overall after the draft this year). The 21-year-old outfielder is hitting .303/.401/.547 with 37 doubles, 27 home runs, 104 RBI, 106 runs, and 31 steals through 124 games in Tulsa this season.
Ohtani's absences haven't hurt the Dodgers much on the field. They've now won seven games in a row, pushing their record to 89-57, a game and a half behind the Brewers for the best record in baseball. The lead in the NL West is up to 11 games with a magic number of six to clinch the division. Basically, it's pretty much wrapped up and the Dodgers' priority is to get Ohtani fully healthy before the playoffs begin.
That's the key right there. The Dodgers know they are headed to the playoffs and winning the World Series is the most important thing. They'll be looking to be the first threepeat champion in Major League Baseball since the 1998-2000 Yankees.
"If it were a postseason game tomorrow," Roberts said, "he would be in the lineup. So I think that now you're talking about two weeks, 14 days, I feel that that's substantial, and he'll be in a much better place than he was today."
Remember, Ohtani has already acknowledged that he's likely done pitching this season. Now the focus is on getting as close to 100% before the playoffs begin. His performance through the injuries started to suffer, too. In his last 13 games, Ohtani hit .122/.295/.184 with zero home runs and 21 strikeouts in 49 at-bats.
Expect De Paula to benefit from the playing-time void of Ohtani's absence. There's no reason to bring up a kid from Double-A with this kind of upside and sit him on the bench. He'll get his feet wet on a team that is firing on all cylinders right now.
