Shohei Ohtani threw five scoreless innings, allowed just three hits, and hit a leadoff home run on the first pitch of the game. However, despite the Dodgers’ 4-0 win over the Padres, Ohtani was frustrated. The contrast between his great stats and his unhappy mood was the biggest story of the night. Ohtani didn’t feel sharp. He needed 52 pitches to get through the first nine batters. That made it his shortest start of the season.

“A lot of uncertainty coming into this outing because the feel wasn’t great,” Ohtani said in the post-game interview. The results were good, but as you saw, the process wasn’t that great.”

The Dodgers walked into Petco Park needing a statement win against the Padres. And Shohei Ohtani gave them the spark they needed. The first pitch of the game by Randy Vásquez was blasted to a 398-foot homer toward right-center.

That homer gave LA momentum, and the Dodgers never lost control of the game from there. Teoscar Hernández added a sacrifice fly RBI, while Kyle Tucker delivered an RBI single in the third inning.

But despite a comfortable 4-0 victory, Ohtani, surprisingly, was not happy with his dominant pitching performance. In the 5th inning, Ohtani gave up a leadoff single to Bryce Johnson, which was backed up with a single by Nick Castellanos. This put Johnson on third. Ohtani did get a soft grounder to get Castellanos out at second, but couldn’t get the double play.

After walking Freddy Fermin on six pitches, he had loaded the bases for Fernando Tatis Jr. If Tatis had singled, two runs would have scored to make it a tight 3-2 game. Instead, Tatis hit the first pitch into an inning-ending double play. Ohtani pumped his fists as he walked off the mound, showing relief, but also frustration at how close he came to blowing the lead.

But looking on the bright side for Ohtani, this game made his case for Cy Young stronger. His ERA has now fallen to 0.73 in 49 innings. Ohtani has surrendered only four earned runs across his eight starts, and when you compare that to his Japanese teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto (21 earned runs, 3.32 ERA in 57 innings), the difference is clear.

What makes this outing scary for the opposition is that, for any other pitcher, this would have been one of the best outings of the season, but for Ohtani, it wasn’t ‘good.’

But this isn’t the only thing that Ohtani is not happy about.

Shohei Ohtani is not happy and doesn’t agree with Dave Roberts

While Shohei Ohtani is not happy with his own pitching, he is also not pleased with Dave Roberts’ decision to give him rest days. Roberts recently gave Ohtani days off from hitting to fight fatigue. The manager blamed Ohtani’s recent hitting slump on being tired, adding that extra rest helps prevent injuries.

Roberts believed those scheduled breaks helped Ohtani mentally and physically to get better at the plate.

Roberts addressed these concerns and said, “I think it was fatigue. Fatigue potentially leads to injury, so getting ahead of the fatigue piece of it, I think, is really important,” following Ohtani’s improved offensive performances in recent games.

Before this turnaround, Ohtani recorded only four hits across 36 at-bats in what was one of his worst offensive stretches. The Dodgers believed reducing daily pressure could protect Ohtani from injuries while improving his production. But Ohtani did not agree with this belief in workload management.

“I actually felt pretty good the day before I pitched, hitting-wise,” Ohtani said. “I think that helped more than the off days.” This shows that Ohtani still wants to show that he can handle being a 2-way player.

But the question that many fans had was, is Ohtani’s offense really that bad? And the answer would be no. Even after going through a slump, Ohtani has a .272 average with.885 OPS. This is the number of an elite hitter and not someone who was in a massive slump. That tension between competition and preservation will probably continue for the rest of the season. Ohtani wants playing time every day because elite athletes rarely enjoy resting during a championship season.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers understand that keeping Ohtani healthy for October matters more than forcing unnecessary regular-season starts. That balance became crystal clear on Wednesday after Ohtani delivered 5 scoreless innings and homered against the Padres on the first pitch of the game.

Even after dominant performances, conversations around Ohtani’s workload will pop up again when the fans start to see a small decline in numbers.