Is Shohei Ohtani ready for his first pennant race with the Dodgers?

Shohei Ohtani, right, celebrates after hitting a home run for the National League in Tuesday's All-Star Game.

Columnist

July 17, 2024 1:14 PM PT

ARLINGTON, Texas —

October came early this year for Dave Roberts.

With the Dodgers dropping six of their final seven games before the All-Star break, the annual scapegoating of Roberts started three months ahead of schedule.

The postgame talk show on the team’s flagship station always fields complaints about the manager when the Dodgers lose, but the volume of such calls increased last week. Other fans vented on social media.

This was news to Shohei Ohtani, who described his relationship with Roberts as “wonderful.”

“I think he’s a manager who has a lot of conversations with players individually,” Ohtani said in Japanese earlier this week. “I myself, there are many areas with which he’s helped me.”

Ohtani applauded his manager’s consistent professionalism.

“As one of the top commanders on the team, I think the manager approaches every game with focus,” he said.

Ohtani is almost certain to be asked about Roberts again.

And again.

Ohtani has probably figured this out by now, considering the observations he’s made about the Dodgers and their fans.

He’s about to experience his first major-league pennant race, for the No. 1 sports franchise in this country’s second-largest market, no less. The first-place Dodgers resume play on Friday night when they host the Boston Red Sox.

“Including the fans, I think it’s a passionate team,” he said.

Ohtani described an environment in which prolonged satisfaction is never derived from regular-season victories, with attention immediately shifting to the next game.

He’s embraced the expectations that produce that mindset. He accepts that if the Dodgers don’t win the World Series this year, they will have failed.

“Of course, only one team wins every year,” he said. “I think every other team thinks they failed. On that point, I think it’s no different for the teams that advanced to the playoffs and the teams that didn’t.”

In recent weeks, Ohtani has referenced the number of players the Dodgers have on the injured list, basically saying this was a period the team had to endure as it waited for them to return.

The Dodgers assembled a rotation consisting of one major health risk after another. The result has been an injury-ravaged staff that has forced Roberts to rely on a disproportionate number of bullpen games and emergency starts from minor leaguers.

No. 1 and 2 starters Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are hurt, with Yamamoto on the 60-day injured list and unlikely to return until rosters expand in September. Clayton Kershaw’s recovery from an offseason shoulder operation has been delayed once already. Walker Buehler aborted his intial comeback from an elbow reconstruction and is now working with private coaches on the other side of the country.

Hard-throwing Bobby Miller, the second-year right-hander whom the Dodgers hoped would emerged as a frontline starter, was demoted to triple A.

The Dodgers are also without one of the best offensive players, All-Star Mookie Betts, who is sidelined with a broken hand.

Still, they hold a seven-game advantage over the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres in the National League West, and Ohtani was upbeat his team could reverse its current downward trend.

“Using this All-Star break, I would like us to restart with new feelings,” he said. “Also, people who are injured will return. Together with players like that, I’d like to do my best in the second half.”

Ohtani will return from the midseason intermission as a triple-crown candidate, as he ranks first in the NL in home runs (29), second in average (.316) and third in runs batted in (69).

Now in this seventh major-league season, the 30-year-old Ohtani said he’s gained confidence in his ability to work his way out of slumps.

“As the years stack up, when I’m not doing well, I think I’m better able to more or less understand the reasons,” he said. “New things come up, of course, but I think there are more cases where I know that if I do certain things, things will move in a good direction. In that sense, as the number of years pile up, I think there will be fewer ups and downs.”