MLB playoffs 2026: Will Shohei Ohtani break his slump?

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Shohei Ohtani took batting practice on the field at Dodger Stadium late Tuesday afternoon, an off day in a National League Championship Series that has his team on the brink.

It marked Ohtani's fourth straight day hitting outdoors, an indication of how prodigious his slump has become. The session came moments after what Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described as a great conversation, one in which Ohtani was adamant that he was close to finding something. There's just complete conviction that he's onto something, Roberts said. He feels like he can help us.

For eight weeks, Ohtani has been a severely diminished version of the four-time MVP who dominated the sport. He hasn't homered since Aug. 18 and has slashed just .156/.283/.200 since, accumulating three extra-base hits and driving in one run. In 20 at-bats in these playoffs, he has contributed three singles, all the result of awkward swings. In the NLCS, he's 1-for-7.

The Dodgers' offense is struggling as a whole, producing a .591 OPS this postseason and managing just two hits in 29 at-bats against the Brewers' vaunted bullpen. Ohtani's swings have been especially worrisome. He has spent all of October either late on fastballs at the heart of the zone or flailing helplessly at breaking balls down and away. As one prominent member of the Dodgers remarked recently: I don't remember the last time I saw him square up a ball.

I've never seen him unable to make adjustments before, said a scout who watched him take at-bats at American Family Field in Milwaukee. Right now he just can't. Ohtani's left knee first began to flare up in early June and quickly diminished him as a pitcher. He posted a 0.74 ERA in his first 10 starts, then a 4.38 ERA in his next four.

Despite multiple attempts to reactivate his arm and throw off a mound, Ohtani didn't pitch beyond July 3. Along the way, he developed tightness in his right biceps. For a while, Ohtani's offensive production continued. But that changed midway through August.

Ohtani was slashing .294/.390/.558 with 30 home runs in 121 games on Aug. 18. Over his next 49 at-bats, he managed just six hits and struck out 21 times. Ohtani and the Dodgers finally relented after Labor Day, by which point a minimum stint on the IL would leave him with only five regular-season games to prepare for the playoffs.

Before he was placed on the injured list in September, Ohtani said he was experiencing discomfort in his right arm and left knee. Asked on Tuesday what was bothering Ohtani, Roberts said, It's everything. Near the end of September, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman acknowledged that Ohtani was not as forthcoming as he could have been about his injuries. The communication back and forth has been awesome, Friedman said then.

The fully sharing exactly how he's feeling, maybe not awesome. In place of that, the Dodgers have leaned on visual cues. The swing that set the wheels in motion for Ohtani's IL stint occurred in the 10th inning on Sept. 2, when he looked compromised during his fourth strikeout of the night and shook his right arm on his way back to the dugout.

Most recently, the alarms went off in the sixth inning of Game 2 on Monday, in an at-bat that began with Ohtani showing bunt and ended with him chasing a pitch. Roberts resigned himself to check in with Ohtani the following day. If Ohtani indicated he was ailing, Roberts was ready to give him time off.

The Dodgers are in a more compromised position now, but they also have a ready-made replacement in the 21-year-old outfield prospect who has looked poised in the batter's box since making his major league debut on Sept. 11. But despite the Dodgers' concerns, Ohtani seemingly talked Roberts out of any switch. What Ohtani is dealing with at the moment remains somewhat vague. Roberts referenced his left knee and right biceps, but also his upper body in general.

Ohtani said his symptoms have subdued a lot since he returned from the IL on Sept. 23 and said he takes full responsibility for his slump, refusing to pin them on physical ailments. It lines up with what the Dodgers' principal decision-makers tend to believe -- that while Ohtani is compromised, his struggles might have more to do with how his mechanics were impacted by previously compensating for injuries.

Dodgers executives have raved about how well Ohtani has fared against the high-velocity machine outdoors and the Trajekt pitching simulator inside. Roberts and hitting coach Aaron Bates have praised his ability to simplify his mechanics, see pitches deep and drive them into the gaps with regularity. In those sessions, they've seen the Ohtani of old.

Then the game begins, and the best player in the world once again looks helpless. Over the course of this long season, there's only really a short period of time when my mechanics are completely in sync, he said through an interpreter on Tuesday. So it's really kind of just going back and forth, finding the right parts of the swing and managing just the different parts of the swing.

It's a constant, ongoing process that's headed in the right direction. Mookie Betts knows what can happen to a once-dangerous swing when a hitter takes the field with physical limitations. Two years ago, Betts was struck by a 98 mph fastball and fractured his left hand. It's really, really hard, Betts said.

It took me almost like two years before I was able to really kind of feel normal again and get those bad habits out. When you're hurt, you just want to play, Betts said. So you'll make adjustments to the swing or to your body so you can play.

Then you don't want to hurt while you play, so you make the adjustments to where your body doesn't feel it. Sometimes it's to the detriment of who you are as a player, and you don't really realize it. I couldn't imagine really kind of having the expectations that he has and falling short in a way that it's not normal for him.

Then having to come back and be present in this postseason knowing how important he is to the boys. He's trying, Betts said. It's just really, really hard. It's really hard to make these slight adjustments in this short amount of time.

Like I said, it took me almost two years. I feel for him. I know he's grinding, he's working. So we'll just see.

We'll see how he comes and prepares. But I know he's giving it his all. We know he's giving it his all. We can at least lay our heads on a pillow at night knowing that we've given it everything.

It was right around this time last year, in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS on Oct. 17, that Ohtani put together what is widely considered the greatest game ever played, blasting three home runs and firing six scoreless innings to complete a sweep of the Brewers. It represented the apex of his powers, and the memory of it still burns inside Brewers manager Pat Murphy and his team as they try to eliminate the Dodgers.

Compiled from 2 sourcesCompiled by HeadTopics editors by cross-checking the verified news reports listed here.

This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.

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