NEW YORK (AP) — Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani has been pulled from his next pitching start and is not expected to take the mound again for a significant stretch of time, all due to irritation in his left knee.
The four-time MVP had a lubricant injection administered to the knee just ahead of last week’s All-Star break, with the expectation that he would be ready to pitch Wednesday against Philadelphia. But after throwing on the side this weekend, Ohtani still wasn’t feeling fully right, prompting him and the club to hold off on even a bullpen session to test the knee.
Ohtani’s last pitching appearance came on July 3, and there is currently no clear timeline for when he’ll be back on the mound.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts addressed the situation Sunday before his team’s doubleheader against the New York Yankees. “I would say that it’s going to be some time,” Roberts said. “It’s not going to be a day-to-day thing.”
Roberts was careful to point out that Ohtani experiences no pain in the knee while batting. The slugger was in the starting lineup for Sunday’s first game, hitting leadoff as the designated hitter, and Roberts said he would decide later whether to play Ohtani in the second game as well.
“We just want to continue to give it the best chance to kind of get in a good spot,” Roberts said. “As he said, as we feel, it’s the pitching and the torque on landing on that leg. That kind of gets it upset. So I think that hitting doesn’t do that. So I think that for us, we’re trying to give it as much time as possible.”
