The Dodgers got their best player back on Wednesday. Shohei Ohtani was activated off the injured list, and Los Angeles optioned prospect Josue De Paula to make room.
Ten days before the postseason, that is the only roster move that mattered.
The Biceps Problem
Ohtani landed on the IL after aggravating a right biceps issue on September 7. Dave Roberts, asked to rate where his star is now, put it plainly: if he was a five before, he is probably an eight or nine right now.
That is a manager saying his guy is close to full strength without promising he is all the way there. Fair enough.
The more instructive number is what happened to Ohtani’s bat before the shutdown. He went 6-for-49 over his final 13 games, a .122 stretch with 21 strikeouts. That is a hitter fighting his own body.
Do Not Confuse the Slump With the Season
Before the injury took hold, Ohtani led the National League in slugging percentage and OPS while hitting .294. That is the version the Dodgers need in October, and the version that ten days of rest is supposed to restore.
The late-season collapse in production lines up almost exactly with the arm trouble. That is an encouraging diagnosis, not a scary one.
Josue De Paula Made This Complicated
Here is the subplot that should interest Dodgers fans most. While Ohtani was out, De Paula stepped into the designated hitter spot and hit .323 with a .500 on-base percentage across 42 plate appearances in 11 games.
A .500 OBP in any sample gets attention. Roberts said De Paula did a fantastic job, which is manager-speak for “we noticed.”
The kicker: De Paula becomes eligible to return on October 3, which is Game 1 of the NLDS, once he completes the required 10-day minor league assignment. Los Angeles kept the door open on purpose.
What This Means for October
The Dodgers have already locked the NL West and are set up with a bye. That bye now looks even more valuable, because it buys Ohtani another week of ramp-up before a game actually counts.
A healthy Ohtani reshapes every pitching matchup a team tries to run at Los Angeles. Opposing managers plan around him first and figure out the rest afterward.
The Bottom Line
Los Angeles just got a top-two player in baseball back with perfect timing and no rust risk, because the calendar hands them rest anyway.
Everybody else in the National League should be annoyed. The Dodgers keep getting the breaks that matter, and they keep cashing them.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.