The Plan To Make Ohtani’s Bat Louder This Week

The Los Angeles Dodgers have set their pitching up for the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers to re-center Shohei Ohtani’s bat, not his breaking ball. Dave Roberts confirmed that there will be just one Ohtani start in the best-of-seven series, not two.
The rest is about giving him clean days to focus on hitting while preserving full-rest turns for Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto when the series tilts late. The Dodgers are reducing his workload, hoping to sharpen swing decisions, and letting the underlying power show up for a week.
While Roberts says this isn’t about Ohtani’s slump, it is.

What the slump actually looked like

Against the Philadelphia Phillies, Ohtani finished the NLDS with one hit and nine strikeouts in 20 plate appearances, including 0-for-12 with six strikeouts against left-handers. Roberts admitted the superstar was chasing out of the zone and too passive in-zone.
Ohtani still had another MVP-level year. He hit .282 with 55 homers and a 1.014 OPS, driven by a .392 OBP and .622 slugging. He punished lefties in the regular season, hitting .279 with 15 homers and a 146 wRC+. That is why the NLDS funk looks more like approach drift than a real platoon problem.

Why one start helps the swing

Just one start means the heavy between-starts pitching work no longer competes with the everyday hitting routine. Pitching preparation includes hours of video and scouting reports.
This frees him up for more cage time, targeted scouting blocks, and easier recovery days. That’s exactly what you want when you are trying to get out of a slump. The off days after Games 2 and 5 set Snell for Game 5 and Yamamoto for Game 6 on full rest, while Ohtani’s prep stays clean.

What the opponent will throw at him

The Brewers leaned on Aaron Ashby and Jared Koenig from the left side and have layered in premium right-handed velocity with Jacob Misiorowski’s multi-inning bursts. In the Cubs series, he was sitting at triple digits and changed the game’s tempo out of the pen. That mix is designed to exploit chase and finish above the barrel. Ohtani’s best answer is to win 0-0 and 1-0 counts and keep the decision window tight on glove-side break.