LOS ANGELES – As Shohei Ohtani ran toward second base, the Dodger Stadium crowd prepared for another electric moment on a night that had already featured plenty to get the home fans going. Home runs by Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman rocked the stadium early in the Dodgers’ 4-2 victory in Game 2, and the Dodgers advanced with a three-run lead and a locked-in Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound. .
But the run production had ceased in the middle of the innings. So after Ohtani walked off Clay Holmes in the bottom of the seventh, he decided to put his game-changing speed to work to try to help manufacture an insurance run with the dangerous Hernandez at the plate with two outs. On Holmes’ first pitch to Hernandez, a slider for a strike, Ohtani took off. A perfect throw by Yankees catcher Austin Wells was caught by second baseman Gleyber Torres and hit Ohtani’s leg just before reaching the base. A guy caught stealing.
And for a moment, that was it. With the third out recorded, Torres trotted off the field and the crowd let out a sigh of disappointment that Ohtani’s attempt to provoke something had failed. It was also a strange sight, something Dodger fans are not used to; Ohtani’s rampant base stealing, which became a major element of his historic 2024 campaign, seemingly disappeared in October, as he has yet to successfully steal a bag this month while being caught twice. This, after he stole 36 consecutive bases without being prevented from finishing the regular season, was a peculiar development in itself.
But then, as the crowd began to settle into its clatter between innings: Silence. Ohtani remained on the ground, face down, before rolling onto his back while holding his left arm. A replay of his feet-first slide revealed that Ohtani had tried to strengthen himself by planting his left hand in the dirt when he reached the base, and his arm had hit the ground at an awkward and apparently painful angle. Manager Dave Roberts rushed to second with a member of Ohtani’s training staff and interpreter, Will Ireton. The superstar finally stood up and walked off the field, appearing to hold his left arm delicately in place as he descended into the dugout and down the tunnel.
On the Japanese broadcast, audio was heard of Ohtani saying his shoulder had come out, and Fox’s Ken Rosenthal verified shortly after that it was a shoulder injury of some kind, not something involving Ohtani’s wrist, as some guessed from his initial reaction. Because he had just hit and the Dodgers were heading into the eighth with a lead, Ohtani was unlikely to have another at-bat in the game, and since he was the designated hitter, he did not need to be officially removed from the game. As such, the rest of the game was played with a pall of uncertainty over the severity of Ohtani’s injury. The world would have to wait until after the final out to learn more about the superstar’s status, ideally from the man himself.
But Ohtani never spoke. Within minutes of the final out, he hurried out of Dodger Stadium, passing the long line of media members waiting to enter the Dodgers clubhouse looking for answers. He had already showered and was dressed in street clothes, with no visible bandages or ice on his left shoulder, when he passed, smiling with a few members of the Dodger staff and security and arriving at the elevator without answering any questions about what had happened or how he got there. I felt his arm. .
Instead, it fell to Roberts to provide some clarity during his postgame press conference, and the update he shared was certainly optimistic.
“He had a small subluxation in his left shoulder,” Roberts said. “So we’ll get some tests done at some point tonight (or) tomorrow, and then we’ll know more in the next few days. But the force was great. The range of motion (was) good.”
Roberts said Ohtani would have an MRI on his shoulder, probably on Sunday.
When asked to further explain the moment, Roberts acknowledged the initial panic shared with the 52,725 at Dodger Stadium. Still, he maintained a positive outlook.
“The scene is very worrying,” he said. “Obviously, when one of your players goes down, it’s worrying. But after the range of motion and strength test, I felt much better.”
When asked about the possibility of continuing in this World Series without the superstar, Roberts did not hesitate.
“I hope it’s there,” he said. “I hope he’s in the lineup.”
Once the Dodgers clubhouse opened, with Ohtani already vacated, a standard postgame session ensued, with media scrums descending on a few select lockers seeking player reaction, first and foremost about the huge victory. of the team in Game 2, but also how they felt watching it. Ohtani leaves the game prematurely under worrying circumstances. Teammates responded to questions about Ohtani’s injury with variations of the same answer: They don’t have any more information than we do, but they recognize it was a worrying time and hope for the best, and they’ll find out too. sooner.
“We’ll see what it’s like in the next few days,” Freddie Freeman said as he answered another round of questions about his historic grand slam that knocked him out 24 hours earlier. “I don’t really have any information, but when you have a group like this… They picked me up when I was down and we’ll try to do the same (with Ohtani).”
“You know how important Shohei is to this team,” Hernandez said. “Hopefully he is fine and the day off tomorrow will help him get back on the field on Monday.”
An already packed room, filled with cameras and microphones, had even less standing room than normal, as oversized bags of players’ equipment were scattered on the floor in the process of being packed for an imminent cross-country flight to New York. City of York. While the question of Ohtani’s injury loomed large, confidence in the room barely wavered as the team prepared to head east, with players exchanging words of enthusiastic affirmation as they donned their dark blue Dodgers tracksuits before Head to the bus to the airport.
The Dodgers had played brilliantly the previous two days, taking a 2-0 series lead with standout performances across the roster from stars and supporting cast members alike. While the exact status of their singular superstar has yet to be fully determined (there could be more clarity Sunday night when the Dodgers hold a workout at Yankee Stadium), there is certainly a lot for Los Angeles to feel good about.
The prospect of Ohtani, the sport’s biggest star, who has been waiting for years to reach this massive stage, missing the World Series games is ominous, to say the least. For now, all we can do is trust Roberts’ optimistic tone and wait for another substantial update.
