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Shohei Ohtani will not participate in the 2026 MLB All-Star Game. The Dodgers announced Friday that Ohtani will skip his scheduled start on the mound against the Arizona Diamondbacks due to continued irritation in his left knee, per staff reporting at DodgerBlue. He’ll serve as the designated hitter for the remainder of the weekend series against Arizona, but after that, the team plans to pursue some interventions during the All-Star break.

This is a significant development — and one that deserves close attention. Ohtani has been the engine of this entire operation since he signed with the Dodgers ahead of the 2024 season. After sitting out 2024 as a pitcher while recovering from his second UCL surgery, he returned to the mound in 2025 and delivered exactly the kind of two-way dominance we all hoped for. He’s continued that trajectory in 2026, anchoring both the lineup and the rotation in a way no other player in baseball can. Losing him from the mound even temporarily changes the calculus for this team.

The left knee is the specific concern here. Ohtani has dealt with various lower-body maintenance issues over the years — this is a player who puts extraordinary stress on his body by hitting and pitching at the highest level. Knee irritation for a pitcher is never something you just wave off. The mechanics of his delivery, the torque he generates, the violence of his swing — all of it runs through the lower half. The fact that the Dodgers are pulling him from his pitching start and planning interventions during the break tells you this isn’t a one-day scratch. They’re being proactive, which is the right call.

The All-Star Game absence is the least important part of this story, honestly. Ohtani has represented the sport on plenty of stages. What matters is what “interventions” means and how long this keeps him off the mound. The Dodgers already have Walker Buehler working his way back, and we’ve been tracking the IL situations with Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, and others. If Ohtani needs an extended stretch away from pitching duties, the rotation depth that looked thin before the deadline suddenly looks dire.

The DH-only arrangement for the rest of the Arizona series is a manageable compromise. Ohtani’s bat has been elite all season, and keeping him in the lineup in some capacity maintains the offensive heartbeat. But I’ll be honest — watching him get pulled from a pitching start with a knee issue puts a knot in your stomach. This is the guy. Everything runs through him.

For the Dodgers’ front office, this adds urgency to the trade deadline conversations we’ve already been tracking. The links to Tarik Skubal and other arms aren’t abstract anymore. If Ohtani’s pitching workload needs to be managed carefully in the second half, acquiring another frontline starter goes from luxury to necessity. Andrew Friedman and the front office surely already knew this, but the timeline just got more real.

We’ll know more after the All-Star break about the scope of the interventions and the expected timeline. For now, the Dodgers are doing the smart thing: protect the most important player in baseball and use the built-in break to get ahead of this. I’d rather lose him for the All-Star Game than lose him for October.

Source(s): Staff (DodgerBlue) | First reported: July 10, 2026 8:51 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers