Dodgers Place Ohtani on IL; Roberts Says Club Tried to Kick the Can Too Long

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are placing Shohei Ohtani on the injured list, manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday, after weeks of left-knee, right-biceps and neck pain that the club tried to manage without an official stay.

“We tried to kick the can as much as we could,” Roberts said after a 14-1 win over Cincinnati. “It’s the right thing to do.” As a two-way player, Ohtani must go on the 15-day list rather than the 10-day list for position players. Backdated to Tuesday, the earliest he can return is Sept. 23 — six days before the wild-card round and 10 days before a National League Division Series that would start Oct. 3.

He has not pitched since July 3. He sat six of the past seven games. He returned Monday, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and a walk, then sat again. Roberts said a swing Monday “he didn’t feel great on” and that Ohtani “hasn’t totally recovered from Monday.” The club learned of that extra discomfort Tuesday night, after it had planned to use him Wednesday and after it had already kept him available as a pinch-hitter.

“If it were a postseason game tomorrow, he would be in the lineup,” Roberts said. “Now you’re talking about two weeks, 14 days. I feel that that’s substantial. He’ll be in a much better place than he was today. Is it going to be 100 percent? Probably not. But I do think that with this time that we’re taking now, he’ll be in an adequate spot to finish the season.” Asked about confidence in that plan, he said, “Very.”

Hindsight came cheaper. “If we look right now, here today, I would love to go back and put him on the IL,” Roberts said of last week’s four-day rest. “But at that moment in time, we all felt that giving him four days was sufficient. He was agreeable. Getting him out there on Monday with the hope that he would be able to play [again Wednesday]. But where we’re at right now, sure.” He also said the staff had already talked to Ohtani about speaking up sooner. “We did,” Roberts said. “That’s right. We did.”

Ohtani, through interpreter Will Ireton, did not close the subject. “It’s hard to say now with the season still going on,” he said when asked about communication. On pitching, he had already drawn a line after Monday’s game: “Most likely, no. I’m going to be focusing on hitting moving forward.” He called that “disappointing” but said the priority was “making sure that the pitching wouldn’t cause the worst scenario, which was for me to not be able to play at all.”

Josue De Paula, a 10th-ranked ESPN prospect who hit .303 with 27 homers and 31 steals in 124 Double-A games, is expected to take the designated-hitter at-bats when the club opens a trip in Miami. Roberts said De Paula would “likely replace Ohtani as the everyday DH.”

The medical list is a pile, not a single date. Knee trouble drew a lubricant injection at the All-Star break. Biceps soreness flared the day of his last start. Neck pain followed. Since Aug. 8, when he was cleared to throw again, he hit .198 with four home runs in 24 games. General manager Brandon Gomes said earlier this week the slump was not tied to health. Roberts, after Wednesday, treated the body as the story. “The most important thing is him being as healthy as possible, not compromising his swing, and kind of bet on that,” he said. “He’s not supernatural, as much as we think he might be at times.”

The calendar is now the opponent. Five regular-season games at most if he comes back on day 15. A postseason that the Dodgers still expect him to start as a hitter, not a pitcher. A four-time MVP who had never been on the injured list in Los Angeles, held out until a Monday swing forced the paperwork the club spent a month trying not to file.