The Dodgers most pressing question: Can Shohei

Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior was frightened. But how frightened? He couldn’t say at first.

The group had already taken major steps to handle Shohei Ohtani’s lingering left knee issue, presenting him with a plan to skip his last start before the All-Star break and have his knee drained that Sunday. And he’d co-signed it.

The swelling in Ohtani’s knee, however, had already been more persistent than the group had first anticipated. And pitching appeared to irritate it.

“I would say, moderately concerned,” Prior finally said in a dialog with The Times last weekend. “But no more concerned than I probably am with anybody else who’s had to deal with aches and pains. Hopefully, this break and this rest will get it to calm down a little bit, and then we’ll see where we’re at next weekend.”

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Dodgers face the most pressing query for their second half: Will they have the option to handle Ohtani’s knee issue?

Of course, loads of other questions loom: What strategy will the Dodgers take at the commerce deadline? Will the pitchers coming off the injured record in the second half present enough pitching depth? Can they keep the best document in the majors?

But naturally, Ohtani’s health is tangled up in all those solutions.

The Dodgers have enough star energy and enough of a lead in the division to still make the playoffs without Ohtani replicating his first half on the mound (8-2, 1.79 ERA). And they confirmed last 12 months that they’ll win a World Series even if their postseason path begins with a wild-card sequence.

They’d choose, however, to take a different route, with a strong second half that ensures home-field benefit all the way in which through the postseason.

“At the end of the day, it’s just trying to expect the best of your ball club,” supervisor Dave Roberts said before the break. “And with the talent that we have, we expect to have the best record in baseball, and so that’s our standard. And so, what falls out of it is x, y and z. So that’s what we’re playing for.”

That’s also what they need a healthy Ohtani for.

Workload is an element of the equation, and an facet that’s garnered loads of consideration in Ohtani’s first full season balancing two-way duties since 2023.

“I’ve been much more open and watching … his workload, and not just taking for granted that he can be a two-way player, take every at-bat, pitch like a normal pitcher,” Roberts said. “I think that would be unfair. So for me, if anything, it’s just, keep having those conversations with him, bringing them to him, and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we see. This might be a different option, a better option for your best interest and our best interest.’ And I think that with that, he’s responded really well.”

That strategy will continue in the second half. But refining Ohtani’s mechanics will also be very important to maintaining his knee from changing into an issue again.

Ohtani said it himself, through interpreter Will Ireton, last week: “I have to kind of find a way to adjust my mechanics so that my knee doesn’t get affected.”

He’s been attempting to do so since the swelling in his knee first cropped up.

“I think we’ve identified the issue,” Prior said. “Sometimes the fix isn’t always the easiest, especially with a guy who doesn’t spend probably the same amount of time on the mechanics of it.”

As a two-way participant, Ohtani doesn’t have the “physical bandwidth,” as Prior put it, for issues like a number of bullpen classes between begins, even if they’re a week aside. He has to keep the long, grueling season in thoughts when he’s also in the lineup every day.

Looking back at Ohtani’s start against the Pirates last month, the day before he exited the sequence finale with inflammation in his left knee, the Dodgers noticed him touchdown a little additional across his physique, probably placing additional pressure on that plant leg as he moved around it.

“He fixed it, and then I’m wondering if it got aggravated just in-game,” Prior said. “These guys are extreme compensators, and in the moment they don’t necessarily know what they’re doing, but they’re finding other ways to pitch, and then afterwards you find out that things are a little sore.”

Ohtani had a dominant first half, but, whether or not because of the knee issue, or mechanics, or some mixture of the 2, he wasn’t fairly as sharp in his last 4 begins (4.38 ERA).

“If he can fix the delivery, then he can fix a little bit more of the execution,” Prior said.

But will the supply adjustment, All-Star break intervention and consideration to workload repair Ohtani’s knee at least through the postseason? The Dodgers’ second-half trajectory will likely be tied up in the reply.