Shohei Ohtani injury: Where Dodgers could turn if superstar misses time during 2024 World Series

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In the seventh inning of the Los Angeles Dodgerseventual 4-2 win over the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the World Series, Dodgers superstar DH Shohei Ohtani suffered a partially dislocated left shoulder while sliding into second base on an unsuccessful steal attempt. Ohtani’s status moving forward is uncertain, which casts a bit of a pall over the Dodgers’ 2–0 lead in the best-of-seven series as the scene shifts to the Bronx. 

“We’re going to get some tests at some point tonight, tomorrow, and then we’ll know more in the next couple days,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after Game 2 on Saturday night. “The strength was great. The range of motion good. So we’re encouraged.”

Roberts also said, when asked if the Dodgers were prepared to play the rest of the World Series without Ohtani: “I’m expecting him to be there. I’m expecting him to be in the lineup.”

Those are optimistic tones, but the question remains: what will the Dodgers do if Ohtani is indeed ruled out for some or all of what’s left of the 2024 World Series? To say the least, Ohtani’s absence would be a dominating one. During the regular season, Ohtani, who took the season off from his usual pitching duties as he recovers from elbow surgery, slashed .310/.390/.646 in an NL-leading 731 plate appearances, and with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases he authored the first 50-50 season in Major League Baseball history. As well, Ohtani led the NL with an OPS+ of 190 and led the majors with 411 total bases. As such, he’s the heavy favorite to win NL MVP honors. 

Coming off a strong NLCS performance against the Mets, Ohtani through the first two games of this World Series has not made much of an impact. Against the Yankees, he’s gone 1 for 7 with a double, a walk, a caught stealing, and a run scored. Yes, the Dodgers have managed to take the first two games of the series without much from Ohtani, but, to state the obvious, the concern is his availability for the two to five games left to play. 

If Ohtani’s marred shoulder rises to meet Roberts’ optimistic tones and he’s in Monday’s Game 3 lineup, then this discussion is over before it begins. If that’s not the case, however, then the Dodgers are facing two possibilities – one, Ohtani misses one or more games but is able to play later in the series, or, two, Ohtani is ruled out for the rest of the series, which forces a roster move. 

On the first possibility, Roberts would likely take advantage of the DH vacancy to shore up his occasionally flawed infield defense. The guess here is that, if Ohtani remains rostered but misses at least Game 3, Freddie Freeman and his still-ailing ankle – not that you’d know it from Freeman’s production thus far in the series – shift to DH to ease his in-game burdens. Then Max Muncy would shift across the diamond from third base to first, and Roberts would populate the hot corner with Enrique Hernández. Gavin Lux would man second base. That arrangement could hold at least through Game 6, as the Yankees will trot out all right-handed starters until, presumably, Carlos Rodon‘s turn comes up again in a potential Game 7. All those right-handed Yankee starters mean the lefty-swinging Lux probably would’ve been in the lineup anyway. If Roberts prefers to keep Freeman at first, then Muncy could move to DH instead, and the rest of the shuffling would be as noted above. 

If Ohtani’s shoulder injury turns out to be severe enough that the Dodgers are forced to make a roster move, then it seems likely they’d summon up another left-handed bat, as their bench would be all right-handed when Lux is in the lineup. That may mean that veteran fly-catcher Kevin Kiermaier, who was on the Dodgers’ NLCS roster, would make his return. Another possibility might be outfielder James Outman, but Kiermaier seems like the most likely path. The Dodgers throughout their decade-plus of contention and, often, regular-season dominance have been famous for their deep reserves of position players. That supply of reinforcements may not presently be as strong as it once was, but the Dodgers still have reasonable post-Ohtani options that shouldn’t necessarily cripple them. To state the bleedingly obvious, Ohtani would be dearly missed, but there’s enough depth and, more important, surrounding star power to get the Dodgers the two additional wins they need. 

The other cause for Dodger comfort is that aforementioned 2-0 lead. They’ve achieved it, as noted, without getting much from Ohtani at the plate, and the bald reality is that the Dodger need to win two more games before the Yankees win four. Historically, teams up 2-0 in a best-of-seven MLB postseason series who opened at home, as the Dodgers did, have gone on to win the series more than 80% of the time. That math is heavily in L.A.’s favor no matter what Ohtani’s status is revealed to be. 

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