NEW YORK (AP) — Shohei Ohtani won't make his next scheduled start on the mound because of left knee irritation and isn't expected back in the Los Angeles Dodgers' rotation for a while.
The two-way superstar received a lubricant injection in the knee just before the All-Star break last week and had been expected to pitch Wednesday in Philadelphia against the Phillies.
Ohtani, however, still didn't feel 100% while playing catch this weekend, so he and
the Dodgers decided not to even test the knee with a bullpen session.
The four-time MVP hasn't pitched since July 3, and it's unclear when he might return to the mound.
“I would say that it’s going to be some time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sunday before his team's doubleheader against the New York Yankees. “It's not going to be a day-to-day thing.”
Roberts reiterated that Ohtani feels no pain in the knee when hitting. The slugger was in the starting lineup for Sunday's opener, batting leadoff as the designated hitter, and Roberts said he'd wait to see about playing Ohtani in the nightcap, too.
“We just want to continue to give it the best chance to kind of get in a good spot,” Roberts said. “As he said, as we feel, it’s the pitching and the torque on landing on that leg. That kind of gets it upset. So I think that hitting doesn’t do that. So I think that for us, we’re trying to give it as much time as possible.”
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AP freelance writer Larry Fleisher contributed to this report.
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