Shohei Ohtani is struggling.
You wouldn’t be able to tell if you looked at his numbers. And you wouldn’t be able to tell if you watched his back-to-back home runs on Tuesday and Wednesday.
However, over a much longer stretch of play, Ohtani isn’t exactly playing like himself.
Through May 16, when Ohtani got hit with a pickoff attempt against the Cincinnati Reds and suffered a bruised hamstring, Ohtani was slashing .360/.430/.669 with 12 home runs, 30 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.099 in 44 games.
Since May 17, Ohtani is slashing .204/.275/.409 with five home runs, 14 RBIs, and an OPS of .683 in 23 games.
While Ohtani has made it clear the hamstring wasn’t hampering his play, it’s clear that it’s led to an elongated slump. Ohtani addressed the slump on Thursday night after an 0-for-4 performance, including a strikeout with two on and one out in the bottom of the eighth inning of a two-run game.
“There’s always going to be stretches of ups and down, as a team and personally,” Ohtani said via interpreter Will Ireton. “Obviously when things aren’t going well, that’s when we put everything under a microscope. My approach has been the same, just trying to put up quality at-bats.”
Ohtani is still having a great year, slashing .306/.377/.578 with 17 home runs and 44 RBIs in his first year with the Dodgers. However, he’s still trying to get out of a slump that’s ramped down his production.
