LOS ANGELES -- Shohei Ohtani has been searching at the plate, but he may have found something on Tuesday night.
After leading off the game with a single, Ohtani took Giants starter Adrian Houser deep for a solo shot in the third inning. It was only his second home run in his past 113 plate appearances, and his first since April 26.
While it was a better night at the plate from Ohtani, it didn't sway manager Dave Roberts from the decision he had made before Tuesday's 6-2 loss. Ohtani will not hit when he pitches against the Giants on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium (7:10 p.m. PT on SportsNet LA and MLB.TV), and he'll also be out of the starting lineup -- but available to pinch-hit in a meaningful situation -- in Thursday's series finale.
"I kind of talked to him and said that's kind of my thought. We were both good with it," Roberts said. "I don't like the bait-and-switch. I think that sometimes that might've been something where, you know, you get a couple days off of hitting and it might have freed him up. You just never know."
Among starting pitchers who have pitched at least 30 innings, Ohtani leads the Majors with a 0.97 ERA. But he has yet to get going as a hitter, bringing his OPS up to .797 after reaching base three times on Tuesday.
Roberts is hopeful that a mental break will help Ohtani build on his better night at the plate. He's not concerned that being out of the starting lineup for two games will halt any momentum the two-way star has gained.
"You just can't be reactive over one game. You really can't," Roberts said. "I've talked about the workload and I've talked to him at length about it. It's tough on days he pitches. I don't think it's fair to the player just to assume, he threw out a couple knocks, so he should be in there tomorrow. I don't like playing that game."
While Ohtani has scuffled as a hitter, he has excelled as a pitcher. He's coming off striking out eight batters across a season-high seven innings last Tuesday against the Astros, although he did allow more than one earned run for the first time this season on the first two homers he's surrendered this year, both solo shots.
Ohtani has thrived on the mound, but the Dodgers have not turned many of his starts into team victories. L.A. is 2-4 when Ohtani starts this year, and has lost 13 of his last 18 outings dating back to last season.
Last year, Ohtani's return to pitching following a lengthy rehab from a second major surgery on his right elbow largely coincided with a team-wide offensive swoon that stretched from July to early September. The Dodgers have been in a similar spot over the past three weeks, having been held to four runs or fewer in 15 of 20 games through Tuesday's action.
With Ohtani on the mound, the Dodgers have scored an average of 2.9 runs per game. He and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3.8) are the only L.A. starters who have received less than the league average (4.6) in run support.
In half of his pitching starts, Ohtani has not had the opportunity to provide his own run support, as he is accustomed to. But with Ohtani searching at the plate for the time being, the Dodgers feel that it is prudent to allow him to solely focus on pitching and plug another hitter in as the DH.
The Dodgers are hopeful that once Ohtani's swing is in a better place, he'll be able to carry out his full two-way workload as he would like to. While he works to get back to being the hitter he's capable of being, the team is leaning toward keeping his workloads separate to improve the quality of the whole.
"I think in this particular case, it’s the load of thinking about the pitching, which he’s used to, but also the load on the pitching side as far as the tax on the body," Roberts said. "So I think that giving him one day for sure, potentially two days, to reset the body, the mind -- there’s only upside.”