Shohei Ohtani has been struggling since he came back from his injury. And with the Dodgers 1-1 in the NLDS against the Braves, they are not willing to take any risks. Dave Roberts has pushed Ohtani down the lineup. But former MLB player Trevor Plouffe thinks that moving him to 5th was not the right call.
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“I could see them going Mookie, Freddie, Will Smith, and then Shohei, then Teo, or Teo in front of Shohei. Like, but he can’t hit six… Fifth is pushing the line of disrespectful to Shohei Ohtani,” said former MLB player Trevor Plouffe.
Plouffe believes the Dodgers should stop at 4th instead of sending Ohtani to 5th. He believes Freddie Freeman should move into the 2nd spot, with Ohtani taking Freeman’s cleanup position. That switch would still change Ohtani’s role while keeping him directly in the heart of things.
The Dodgers are trying to find an answer for Shohei Ohtani’s struggles.
Ohtani will enter Game 3 after going 2-for-8 in the first two NLDS games. His struggles became more concerning after he chased 42.9% of pitches outside the zone (nine swings on 20 pitches out of the zone) this postseason.
Since his return from the IL, Ohtani has been 5-for-21 with one extra-base hit, with his last home run on August 18.
With Chris Sale waiting in Atlanta, things are only going to get more difficult.
All this discussion started when Dave Roberts opened the door to changing Ohtani’s place in the lineup.
“Going further than moving him from one to two, I’m open to it,” Roberts said.
For Game 3, their starting lineup looks like this:
- Mookie Betts
- Freddie Freeman
- Teoscar Hernández
- Will Smith
- Shohei Ohtani
- Miguel Rojas
- Andy Pages
- Kyle Tucker
- Kiké Hernández
The Dodgers manager had already noticed Shohei Ohtani chasing pitches more often during his postseason at-bats. Roberts also explained that Atlanta continued expanding the zone because Ohtani kept going after their pitches.
Ohtani’s Game 2 performance showed exactly why the Dodgers became concerned about his approach.
He swung at 11 of 19 pitches while chasing 53%. That number was much higher than his 17% chase rate during Game 1 against the Braves.
The numbers also give Plouffe’s idea some support, especially when comparing Ohtani’s previous lineup spots.
Shotime owns a .280 average in just 37 games while batting 4th during his MLB career. He has hit .245 with 8 homers and 26 RBIs in 47 games while batting 5th. The 4th spot also produced 8 home runs and 30 RBIs, despite Ohtani playing 10 games less at 5th.
Meanwhile, the two-way phenom himself is pretty much on board with the plan.
Before Tuesday’s game, the skipper noted that Ohtani is not only receptive to the move, but joked that he planned to tell the manager to hit him seventh during his September slump.
“The guys I feel at the top have a good chance to get on base, and I do think that there’s going to be opportunities where the game, the situation, bleeds into Shohei’s at-bat,” Roberts shared.
Betts and Freeman have recorded a .500 OBP this postseason, while Teo is at .250. But this regular season, Teo has improved to .334, and Smith is at .355, with his last postseason OBP being .364. Meanwhile, Ohtani’s OBP is at .250. Hence, the sequence makes sense.
Ohtani has not always spent his career near the top of the batting order. Most of his experience batting 5th came during his earlier Angels seasons, before he became the unicorn we know today. But ever since his move to the Dodgers, his lowest spot has been No. 2.
Plouffe believes that playing cleanup will be the right balance between protection and patience.
For Shohei Ohtani, batting 4th could offer something simple that he needs right now:
More time.
Instead of immediately preparing to hit, he can watch Freeman and other hitters face Sale, against whom Ohtani is just 3-for-15 in his career.
“Trying to chase slug [Tuesday] night might not be the right plan, given the starter. But I do think that there’s something because he feels the responsibility to kind of slug. But that’s not the case. That’s kind of the competitor in him,” exclaimed Roberts.
Clearly, LA wants to take the lead by Game 3 because whoever loses will be hanging by a thread in Game 4. This lineup change has more to do with Sale than any future lineup indication. It may not stay the same in Game 4 when the starter is Tyler Mahle. There’s another point to note here:
Since Ohtani’s return, he has been a leadoff hitter against right-handers (Mahle), while hitting second vs left-handers (Sale).
Ohtani was 1-for-4 in Game 2, though he did spark a brief fifth-inning window with a single against a Dylan Lee fastball. However, the subsequent hitters failed to capitalize, and Ohtani’s overall approach stalled key rallies.
Game 3 is a matchup of aces, Sale and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Plus, it’s a revisit to the Braves’ and Dodgers’ final regular-season meeting on Aug. 27.
Yamamoto allowed a leadoff homer and then nothing for the rest of the 6 1/3 innings. But Sale outdueled him, tossing a shutout on 109 pitches.
After returning from injuries, those extra moments could help him understand the pitcher’s approach. With the Dodgers needing Ohtani to rediscover his swing, that small change could have sparked something important, but now we will never know.