The Los Angeles Dodgers fell short in their quest to pull of a rare threepeat as their journey ended in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series. There were many factors that led to the dissolution of their championship aspirations. The most visible was the unprecedented struggle Shohei Ohtani, the best player in baseball, down the stretch and into the postseason.
Ohtani encountered myriad issues during the year, including his left knee and right shoulder—the latter kept him from from pitching after July 3. A silver lining for the organization as it seeks to reload in the offseason is news today that the dual-threat star will not require surgery for those or any other ailment in the offseason.
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Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman provided an update on Ohtani’s future on Wednesday. The major takeaway is that, with rest, the 2027 season is not expected to be impacted by those potential problems.
“I fully expect him to pitch next year,” Friedman told reporters.
For as great as Ohtani is, his skill set presents a unique challenge. There is no blueprint for how a player of his magnitude and versatility should best be deployed. Clearly, the Dodgers get high marks for maximizing his talents to this point.
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“This is unprecedented, what he’s doing,” Friedman said. “So obviously for us it’s unprecedented. We don’t have any experience to draw from. We can’t go look at how other situations have played out to try to learn from the good and the bad. We have to all just figure it out together. And I’m not only expecting him to pitch; we’re excited about him pitching. So now it’s about: How do we do that? How do we manage through a long season and have him at his best going into October? That’s a challenge.”
Though the Brewers are showing all the hallmarks of being a team of destiny, the Dodgers’ 2026 campaign will likely go down as a what if. There’s no telling what would have happened had Ohtani not been a compromised version of himself at the season’s most pivotal moments.
The slugger went 4-for-22 and without an extra-base hit in his first seven playoff games before hitting a homer in Game 4 against Milwaukee—a blast that provided to be too little and too late. A spectacular start on the mound—where he went 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA—was derailed and then ultimately shut down.
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It will be fascinating to see how a once-in-a-lifetime player rebounds from the major disappointment. The Dodgers have to feel a bit better about the long-term outlook and clearer path back to the field and atop the sport.
