Ohtani's Knee Stalls Again, and the Dodgers Have No Timeline

Shohei Ohtani skipped a scheduled bullpen session Saturday, and manager Dave Roberts said he won't throw off a mound until the left knee feels completely right. That's not a timeline. That's a hold. Roberts acknowledged "a little bit of regression" after Ohtani's last session Wednesday, which is how a 9-3, 1.91 ERA arm quietly disappears from your rotation plans heading into August.

The Dodgers are 57-33 and on a four-game winning streak, so the alarm bells aren't ringing in the standings yet. But the rotation behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-6, 2.62 ERA) is thin in ways that matter. Roki Sasaki and Emmet Sheehan are both sitting above a 5.00 ERA. Glasnow, Snell, Bobby Miller, and Gavin Stone are all on the 60-day IL. The team has been winning lately by holding opponents to 3.8 runs a game, not by scoring — they're averaging 3.4 runs over the last 10. That math works until it doesn't.

The Ohtani pitching situation is its own category of complicated. He's still hitting — .278/.402/.495 with 10 home runs as a DH — so the lineup doesn't lose him. But the rotation does, and there's no replacement for a pitcher of his caliber sitting in the system. The news that Roki Sasaki's improvement is factoring into the club's reported interest in Tarik Skubal suggests the front office is already planning around Ohtani's absence rather than waiting on it.

For now, the Dodgers hold first place with 72 games left and a magic number of 57. That's a comfortable cushion. But comfortable cushions have a way of compressing fast when your best pitcher can't throw off a mound and nobody knows when he will.