What did Shohei Ohtani say about his potentially serious injury during Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night?
Ohtani was seen cautiously holding his left arm after being caught stealing in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ 4-2 victory over the New York Yankees. Now, after Los Angeles improved its series lead to 2-0, a social media account that provides English-language reporting on Japanese baseball has revealed the Dodgers sensation’s exchange with translators and coaches.
“Shoulder,” Ohtani said as he leaned back in the frame, as quoted in the Yakyu Cosmopolitan X account.
‘Actually?’ the translator asked. ‘Which?’
“To the left,” Ohtani said.
When asked if his arm came out of his shoulder socket, Ohtani is quoted as saying, “I think so.”
Ohtani reacts at second after apparent injury in the seventh inning against the Yankees
Ohtani reacts after injuring his shoulder against the New York Yankees in the seventh inning
Ohtani partially dislocated his left shoulder, according to later reports. His status for Monday’s Game 3 in New York is unclear. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani “had a small subluxation in his left shoulder” and would undergo imaging tests Saturday night or Sunday.
“We’ll know more in the coming days,” Roberts said. ‘The force was great. The range of motion is good. So we are encouraged. But obviously I can’t speculate because we don’t have the scans yet. So once we get the scans, we’ll know more. Again, taking into account strength and range of motion, that’s certainly a positive.”
The Japanese slugger, and presumed National League Most Valuable Player, went 0 for 3 with a walk in the game. He is 1 for 8 in the first two games of the Fall Classic and is hitting .260 with three home runs and 10 RBIs in his first postseason in the majors.
‘That was hard. You never like to see the best player in the game get hurt like that,” said Yankees superstar Aaron Judge. ‘They try to steal a base like that there, and something like that happens. But hopefully it’s all good news. We’ll see what happens.’
Ohtani had been one of the few players on the Dodgers roster to make it through the season without suffering a major injury. The pitching staff has been beset by injuries, with nearly every member of the starting rotation spending time on the disabled list.
Ohtani Ohtani is helped off the field after being injured during the seventh inning of Game 2.
Among position players, Mookie Betts was out for nearly two months with a broken left hand, and Max Muncy was out nearly half the season with a right oblique strain. Freddie Freeman is playing in the postseason with a severely sprained right ankle.
Betts is optimistic the Dodgers will persevere if Ohtani is sidelined, especially after the team overcame injuries while earning the most wins in the majors during the regular season and reaching the World Series for the fourth time in eight seasons. .
“We’ve got a great group of guys here and I think we can take care of business for sure.” “I believe in all of us,” Betts said.
Most of Ohtani’s injuries since arriving in the majors in 2018 have been pitching-related, including major surgeries on his right elbow in 2018 and last year. The two-way phenom hasn’t pitched this year, but he became the first player in major league history with at least 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a season.
In September 2019, he underwent surgery on his left kneecap due to a rare condition. The procedure was performed on his bipartite kneecap, or a two-part kneecap that was not fused at birth.
Ohtani missed the 2017 World Baseball Classic after undergoing ankle surgery due to an injury he suffered during the 2016 Japan Series.
‘When you have a group like this, they picked me up when I was down. We’ll try to do the same for him,” Freeman said.