Shohei Ohtani left Friday night’s game against the San Diego Padres in the seventh inning with a right biceps issue and is unlikely to pitch in the All-Star Game after the Los Angeles Dodgers adjusted his schedule.
Ohtani’s Injury
The two-way superstar was hitless in three at-bats before being lifted as a precaution. On the mound, Ohtani allowed three runs and seven hits in six innings. He struck out nine and threw a season-high 110 pitches before Los Angeles rallied for a 4-3 victory.
Ohtani said he felt the biceps issue during his at-bat in the sixth, when he flied out to right field. “It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago,” he said through a translator. “It went away pretty relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”
Recovery and All-Star Game
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani would be given Saturday off to recover and receive treatment. “He’s a quick healer and finds a way to get back,” said Roberts, who added that Ohtani’s previous biceps issue was “so benign that I didn’t hear about it until tonight.”
Ohtani has primarily been starting on the mound every Wednesday, but the team pushed him back to Friday this week to manage his workload. Asked if that meant Ohtani was unlikely to pitch in the All-Star Game, Roberts said before the game: “I haven’t formally said it, but if you just kind of do the math, it would be hard to imagine. But I don’t have to make that decision quite yet.”
Ohtani is already penciled into the All-Star starting lineup as the NL designated hitter because he was the overall leader with 3,341,257 votes after the first phase of fan balloting.
Original reporting: KSAT Sports (San Antonio) — read the source article.