Sometimes, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, all it takes one bad matchup, or one crafty pitcher, for a hitter to “trigger bad habits” in their swing.
In the case of Shohei Ohtani, and his struggles over the last several games of the Dodgers’ postseason, the culprit appears to have been San Diego Padres starter Yu Darvish.
In six at-bats against Darvish during last week’s National League Division Series, Ohtani went hitless, striking out three times while looking atypically mortal after his superhuman regular season.
In Game 5 of the NLDS, Ohtani seemed particularly uncomfortable against Darvish in the box. He went down on strikes chasing a slider out of the zone. He hit a lazy pop-up on a cutter down the middle. He struck out again chasing a curveball off the plate.
Before that game, Ohtani was off to a decent — though only occasionally dominant — first career postseason, collecting four hits and four RBIs over his first four games.
Starting with that 0-for-4 performance in Game 5, however, Ohtani hasn’t looked like himself.
He bashed one ball off the wall in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets. But his only other hit over the past three games came on a slow roller Pete Alonso misread at first base.
Overall, Ohtani is just two for his last 12 with six strikeouts and only one RBI. On the whole this October, he also remains hitless when the bases have been empty, going 0 for 19 in such situations compared to a six-for-eight mark when the pitcher had a runner to worry about.
Asked about all this Tuesday, during an off-day ahead of the New York swing of the best-of-seven championship series, Roberts pointed back to Ohtani’s struggles against Darvish — and the bad habits, like chasing pitches out of the zone and failing to use the “big part of the field,” that have not-so-coincidentally followed.
“I was surprised with [his at-bats against] Darvish,” Roberts said. “I was surprised that he expanded [the strike zone] versus Darvish.”
And going into Game 3 on Wednesday night, Ohtani and the Dodgers are still trying to rectify his slumping form ever since, hoping the soon-to-be three-time MVP can improve upon his .222 batting average and .677 OPS so far this postseason.
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