When Shohei Ohtani was requested about his woeful efficiency on the plate within the Dodgers’ Nationwide League Division Collection towards the Philadelphia Phillies final week, he first gave credit score to the opposition.
Then, after a collection that noticed the Phillies counter him with one left-handed pitcher after the subsequent, he was additionally fast to level out that he wasn’t alone.
“It was pretty difficult for left-handed hitters,” Ohtani mentioned in Japanese amid the Dodgers’ clubhouse celebration following their Sport 4 victory. “This was also the case for Freddie [Freeman].”
The Phillies did certainly make life robust on the Dodgers’ finest lefty bats.
Freeman was solely three for 15 within the collection, albeit with a key Sport 2 double and a .294 on-base-percentage.
Max Muncy was 4 for 9 within the collection, however spent most of it ready on the bench, not getting a begin in any of the three contests the Phillies had a southpaw on the mound.
And as a workforce, the Dodgers hit simply .199 with 41 strikeouts within the four-game collection.
Nevertheless, nobody’s struggles had been as pronounced as Ohtani’s — the soon-to-be four-time MVP winner, who within the NLDS seemed like something however.
Ohtani struck out in every of his first 4 at-bats in Sport 1. He didn’t get his first hit till grounding an RBI single by means of the infield within the seventh inning of Sport 2.
After that, Ohtani’s solely different time reaching base safely was when the Phillies deliberately walked him within the seventh inning of Sport 4.
His last stat line from the collection: One for 18, 9 strikeouts and an entire lot of questions on what went improper.
Ohtani, who was coming off a three-hit, two-homer wild-card spherical, did acknowledge Thursday night time that “there were at-bats that didn’t go the way I thought they would.”
However, he shortly added: “The opposing pitchers didn’t make many mistakes. They pitched wonderfully, in a way that’s worthy for the postseason. There were a lot of games like that for both teams.”
The actual query popping out of the collection was concerning the root reason behind Ohtani’s sudden struggles.
Was it merely due to the robust pitching matchups, having confronted a lefty in 12 of his 20 journeys to the plate? Or had his faltering strategy created extra professional issues, the type that might threaten to proceed into the NL Championship Collection?
“I think a lot of it actually was driven by the left-handed pitching,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned Saturday, because the Dodgers awaited to face both the Chicago Cubs or Milwaukee Brewers in an NLCS that can start on Monday.
Nevertheless, the supervisor additionally put the onus on his $700-million celebrity to be higher.
“Hoping that he can do a little self-reflecting on that series, and how aggressive he was outside of the strike zone, passive in the zone,” Roberts mentioned. “The at-bat quality needs to get better.”
For the Dodgers, the implications are stark.
“We’re not gonna win the World Series with that sort of performance,” Roberts continued. “So we’re counting on a recalibration, getting back into the strike zone.”
From the very first at-bat of Sport 1 — when he was additionally the beginning pitcher in his first profession playoff sport as a two-way participant — Ohtani struggled to make the best swing selections.
He chased three pitches off the within of the plate from Phillies lefty Cristopher Sánchez, which Roberts felt “kinda set the tone” for his series-long struggles, then took a referred to as third strike the subsequent two instances he confronted him.
From there, the 31-year-old slugger may by no means appear to dial again into his strategy.
He went down trying once more in Sport 1 towards left-handed reliever Matt Strahm. He led off Sport 2 with one other strikeout towards one other lefty in Jesús Luzardo. On and on it went, with Ohtani persevering with to chase inside junk, flailing at pitches that darted off the plate the opposite means, and discovering his solely reprieve in a rematch with Strahm in Sport 2 when he bought simply sufficient on an inside sinker.
Roberts’ hope was that, shifting ahead, Ohtani would be capable to study and alter.
“Understanding when he faces left-handed pitching, what they’re gonna try to do: Crowd him in, off, spin him away,” Roberts mentioned. “He’s just gotta be better at managing the hitting zone. I’m counting on it. We’re all counting on it.”
Roberts additionally conceded that Ohtani’s at-bats on the day he pitched in Sport 1 appeared to be particularly rushed.
“[When] he’s pitching, he’s probably trying to conserve energy, not trying to get into at-bats,” Roberts mentioned. “It hasn’t been good when he’s pitched. I do think that’s part of it. We’ve got to think through this and come up with a better game plan.”
In spite of everything, whereas Ohtani may not have been the one struggling hitter within the NLDS, his significance to the lineup is larger than anybody’s. The Dodgers can solely endure with out him for thus lengthy.
