The Los Angeles Dodgers are in a tough spot, with Shohei Ohtani pitching so well that he is in the Cy Young race, but the team still needs to make sure he is healthy for October.
Ohtani has a 0.74 ERA in 10 games, pitching 61 innings and averaging just over six innings per outing, giving the Dodgers good length.
He has a great 51.7% groundball rate, sacrificing his strikeouts — which is a rate of 9.89 per nine innings — for easy outs that can lead to double plays.
Ohtani’s ERA is at an unsustainable rate, with a .197 batting average on balls in play set to rise and a 91.5% left-on-base percentage set to fall. Also, ERA indicators like expected ERA and FIP have him in the 2.40 range.
However, his metrics are undeniable at this point — he is pitching at the top of the National League. Even with his command not being sharp for a small stretch this year, he did not allow much damage and got himself out of jams.
Against the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 3, he allowed two hits, one walk, and got six strikeouts over six innings.
Additionally, with his bat starting to pick up, Ohtani is an absolute lock for the National League MVP at this point, barring health.
Despite his magical season thus far, Ohtani is trailing behind two pitchers in the Cy Young race thus far.
Shohei Ohtani’s competition for the Cy Young
Despite his success, Cristopher Sanchez and Jacob Misiorowski have pitched more often, and their innings totals are surpassing Ohtani’s, along with their strikeouts.
Misiorowski has a 1.65 ERA and a 1.85 FIP with a ridiculous 13.69 strikeout per nine-inning rate. Notably, he has 71 innings pitched, 10 more innings than Ohtani, with a start coming on Friday.
Sanchez is at 86.1 innings after a start on Wednesday, 15 more than Ohtani, and he has a 1.46 ERA and 1.79 FIP.
How can the Dodgers fix the innings gap?
With Ohtani already trailing in innings, something that voters take very seriously, and his pitcher WAR lagging as a result, the question naturally becomes how the Dodgers will handle his workload as the season nears the end.
When talking to The Athletic’s Katie Woo, the coaching staff made it clear that he will not follow a regular four-day rest schedule like a normal pitcher.
“The chances of (Ohtani and Yamamoto) pitching on regular rest in the regular season, I won’t say zero, but it’s not much higher than that,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said recently.
Ohtani is pitching on five days’ rest at the very least, which can be extended to six or seven days depending on the schedule.
Dave Roberts has been quite careful to manage Ohtani this season, giving him hitting rest on days that he pitches during his slump, but as Ohtani’s hitting has picked up, he is back to double-duty on certain days.
He is notably more careful with Ohtani’s pitch count on those days when he starts as a pitcher and hits, and despite Ohtani being in the mix for the Cy Young, Roberts believes it is too early to manage the Japanese star with the award in mind.
“Yeah, I can be mindful of it,” Roberts said. “But I still think that you still have to play the game. I have to manage the game accordingly, to what’s best for the team. And I just don’t think, with those three guys, you’re not gonna win it on June 3. So there’s a lot of baseball left.”
If Ohtani keeps delivering on the mound and either Sanchez or Misiorowski slips up, the Dodgers will have pressure from both the player and fans to make sure he gets every chance possible to make history as the first Japanese player to take home the Cy Young.
