Dodgers end season with 100th win, questions about Ohtani

SAN FRANCISCO -- Five games do not tell the story of Shohei Ohtani's year, but that season-ending sample holds a fair amount of weight as the Dodgers evaluate which version of their superstar they will get in the postseason.

Ohtani knocked a base hit in three at-bats as the Dodgers closed the book on their regular season with a 5-1 win in 10 innings over the Giants on Sunday afternoon at Oracle Park. L.A. has won 100 games for the sixth time under manager Dave Roberts, who joins Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Joe McCarthy as the only managers to accomplish the feat.

The most meaningful games of the year are just around the corner for the back-to-back World Series champions, whose title defense picks up when the NL Division Series begins next Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

"It doesn't change anything as far as our standing going forward in the postseason," Roberts said, "but it's still a nice feather in our cap to win 100 games."

The Dodgers finished strong by going 18-7 in September, and they'll look to maintain that momentum through the upcoming bye week.

"I just think as a group we played better baseball again, and that’s what you want going into the postseason," Freddie Freeman said. "Our pitching staff is amazing. Guys started to swing the bat better. Some of us still need to use these five days to figure it out. But a lot of good things happened over the course of the end of the season."

As the Dodgers bid for a three-peat, which would be the first in the Majors since the 1998-2000 Yankees, they are counting on Ohtani to set the tone for their offense as he has consistently done in his three seasons in L.A. But in the five games after his 15-day injured list stint due to lingering right biceps and left knee injuries -- after more than two weeks without seeing live pitching -- Ohtani did not show much at the plate, hitting 5-for-21 (.238) with eight strikeouts against one walk.

Overall, Ohtani finished the regular season hitting .275 with an .889 OPS and 30 homers -- which all came before he went on the IL. His run of consecutive MVP seasons is set to end after three years, as the Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong has seemingly run away with the award.

Before Sunday's finale, Roberts described Ohtani's recent performance as showing rust rather than being a legitimate concern heading into the postseason. The Dodgers believe Ohtani feels as good physically as he has in some time, and they don't think his swing looks compromised, as it did before he went on the IL.

While better results from Ohtani would have been encouraging, the Dodgers were looking for more than just the surface numbers. They wanted to see him conduct quality at-bats, which he did in his first two games back and on Sunday, with a lapse in between. But ultimately, these games were more about health and process rather than pure performance, much like a rehab assignment.

"I thought today the process was much better," Roberts said. "But I think the main thing is that we feel that he came out of it healthy, and so you just expect the ensuing days he feels even better. So, when you look out to Saturday, I think he'll be in a good spot."

Ohtani's performance began to drop off most notably when he attempted to ramp back up as a pitcher starting on Aug. 8. In the 24 games between then and his IL stint, Ohtani hit .198 and struck out 34 times in 109 plate appearances. His average bat speed (72.5 mph) and exit velocity (92.2 mph) in that span were down compared with his first 106 games (72.9 mph bat speed and 93.4 mph exit velocity).

In Ohtani's five games back from the IL, he gained a tick of average bat speed (72.6 mph) and hit the ball notably harder (96.8 mph). Even though that did not translate to immediate results, it would seem to be a positive sign for both Ohtani's health and his swing.

The postseason is a new beginning. Ohtani will have the bye week to rest up and take live at-bats, and starting on Saturday, the Dodgers are hopeful that he will swing the bat more like his usual self. But they won't know exactly what they have in their superstar until they see him under the lights.