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Shohei Ohtani‘s latest injury scare could keep him off the mound for the remainder of the 2026 season, per reporting from the LA Times. The Dodgers are hopeful Ohtani will avoid the injured list, but the injury concern may force the team to shelve his pitching plans down the stretch and into October.

This is the next chapter in what’s been a frustrating season for Ohtani on the pitching side. He’s already dealing with biceps and knee soreness that forced him out of the lineup during the Cardinals series. The repeated physical setbacks suggest the workload—both as a hitter and pitcher—is catching up with him. If the Dodgers elect to shut him down from mound duty, it removes a significant piece of their rotation depth heading into the postseason, where every arm matters.

For the Dodgers’ rotation, this complicates an already thin depth chart. We’ve already lost Eric Lauer to elbow inflammation and placed Will Klein on the 60-day IL. Roki Sasaki‘s role remains uncertain due to a finger blister. If Ohtani is unavailable to pitch, the team will lean even harder on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Tarik Skubal, with call-ups like Emmet Sheehan and Bobby Miller from AAA filling gaps. That’s workable, but it leaves no margin for error.

The question now is whether keeping Ohtani off the mound lets him focus entirely on being a DH and protecting his body for October. That trade-off might actually be smart baseball right now—a healthy Ohtani at the plate in the postseason is more valuable than a compromised version trying to do both jobs. But we won’t know the full picture until the team makes it official.

Source(s): LA Times | First reported: September 4, 2026 4:18 AM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers