The Los Angeles Dodgers head towards the trade deadline with a couple of concerning injury situations. Shohei Ohtani has been shut down from pitching indefinitely because of persistent irritation in his left knee. He didn’t make his scheduled start against the Philadelphia Phillies and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said there is no timetable for his return to the mound.
Meanwhile, Dodgers catcher Will Smith remains sidelined with a neck injury. Dalton Rushing has been doing the backstop duties in his absence, as Smith is expected to miss several more weeks.
This has raised the possibility of the Dodgers leveraging their farm system to bolster their rotation and catcher position with Ohtani and Smith’s injury in mind. However, MLB analyst Katie Woo has shut down the idea, given how Dodgers president Andrew Friedman generally works.
“So as long as the Dodgers feel like Dalton Rushing can continue growing and continue adjusting to a full-time workload, and that they have enough depth in their rotation to, I don’t want to say coast because that implies that guys are taking their foot off the gas, which they’re not, but float,” Woo said. “We’ll go with float atop the division. Then I don’t see Andrew Friedman depleting his farm system for something that they’re not going to need in October when it really matters for them.”
According to Woo, the Dodgers are going to take a wait-and-watch approach on how other teams behave.
Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani’s Cy Young Chances Shattered
The only award that has evaded Shohei Ohtani so far is the Cy Young. He has won three MVPs but has yet to win the best pitching award.
There was a good chance for the Dodgers ace to accomplish that milestone, as he was having a great year pitching-wise. After the latest update on Ohtani, the Dodgers star may not have enough innings under his disposal to even qualify for the awards.
The Dodgers tried a lubricant injection before the All-Star break, but the knee has not improved enough for him to resume pitching.
So far in 14 starts, he has posted a 1.79 ERA across 85.2 innings with 95 strikeouts and a 234 ERA+ this season. The NL Cy Young watch also includes pitchers like Jacob Misiorowski, Cristopher Sanchez, Chase Burns, Chris Sale, and Zack Wheeler. All of them have a healthy innings count, so it was always going to be difficult for Ohtani even if he has extraordinary stats.
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