In Game 2 on Monday, Shohei Ohtani squared around to bunt. The best player in the world, four MVPs, the first man to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a season, tried to drop one down. That's how lost he is right now. Jared Diamond of the Journal laid it out on Thursday, Oct. 15, and the news got worse by Friday's paper.
Entering Wednesday's Game 3, Ohtani was 3 for 20 in the postseason with seven strikeouts. All three hits were singles. The slump started before October. His last home run came Aug. 18, and he hit .157 from there. He's missing fastballs down the middle, pitches he used to launch. The Dodgers considered benching him Wednesday. They didn't. Manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani insisted he felt good enough to play.
He isn't healthy. He has been dealing for months with a sore left knee and a right biceps problem, and those are only the injuries the team has talked about. He stopped pitching after July 3. The biceps put him on the injured list in September. On Tuesday he said the symptoms had eased and shouldn't be the reason he can't hit. His swing, he said, is a daily process of trying different things.
The season that turned
At the All-Star break, just past his 32nd birthday, Ohtani had a .952 OPS, second in the National League, with 22 homers. He had come in fully healthy for the first time in years and talked of a Cy Young to go with the four MVPs. Then the body gave out. Mookie Betts put it simply. “It's hard to see,” he said. “We need him.” The rest of the lineup hasn't covered for him. Freddie Freeman was hitting .227, Max Muncy .211 and Will Smith was 1 for 23. On Wednesday night Milwaukee won Game 3, 6-2, and leads the series 3-0. A year ago in this same series, against this same team, Ohtani struck out 10 over six shutout innings and hit three home runs in one game.
Our read
We file this under Investments and Risk, IN04, because it's a concentration story. The Dodgers built a lineup that worked when one man carried it. When he got hurt, nobody else could. Freeman, Muncy and Smith are fine players having a bad month at the same time. That's what a portfolio with one star looks like in a drawdown. The star doesn't have to be a bad pick. Ohtani is the best there is. He's just one body, and bodies get hurt.
Here's the connection to your own plan. Open your brokerage or 401(k) app this week and look at the single biggest position you own, including company stock from work. If one name is more than about a tenth of the whole, you're running a Dodgers lineup. Write down what the plan does if that one name has an Ohtani year, and whether you'd still be fine. Nobody buys the umbrella in the seventh inning of a rainstorm. A plan review is the time to ask that while the sun's still out.