Dodgers' Dave Roberts Makes Bold Shohei Ohtani Claim Amid Pitching Dominance

It is difficult to critique Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani's offense when his pitching prowess has been nothing short of historic through his first seven starts of 2026.

After going 11 games without a home run, batting .163 in those 51 plate appearances, there was reason for at least a little concern for the four-time MVP. However, one would have no idea given his elite pitching performances during that time.

His MLB-best 0.82 ERA across 44 innings of work has earned him an ERA+ of 487, a mark that is astronomical given the fact that the league average is 100.

Earlier this week, manager Dave Roberts decided to give Ohtani some rest at the plate and announced before Tuesday's game that he'd be removing his his two-way star from the batting order on both his scheduled pitching start Wednesday, as well as during Thursday's series finale against the San Francisco Giants.

Ohtani's response was ending his home run drought on Tuesday night despite his team's fourth-straight loss. The next day, he struck out eight Giants through seven scoreless innings and got the defending champions back in the win column.

Roberts recently spoke about Ohtani's impressive start to the season despite his cooled down offensive numbers, and even touched on a bold claim that seems to be more normalized each time the Cy Young candidate approaches the mound.

“You see it,” Roberts said via the Orange County Register. “We’ve all seen that transformation. He wants to be the best pitcher in baseball, and right now, he’s doing it. And so you can tell he’s hyper-focused on the preparation part of it, and then obviously the days that he starts, the execution.”

“It’s interesting because last year, there was a lot of conversations that he shouldn’t pitch and just be a hitter. And so now, it’s kind of flipped on its head,” Roberts added. “I can’t imagine what goes through his mind, but I do feel clarity on how we’re managing him."

Though fans and onlookers of his greatness surely don't mind, Ohtani himself is far from satisfied with his lackluster output with his bat lately. He knows better than anyone that if his offensive numbers are down, he has a rare opportunity not seen in MLB in over a century to get back some of his production on the mound.

“The ideal situation is to be great on both sides of the ball but how I look at it is if I’m not contributing offensively, then I know I can contribute on the pitching side of things and vice versa,” Ohtani said through an interpreter.

Though it's only mid-May, Ohtani is looking like a prime candidate to become the first Cy Young award winner from Japan in MLB history.

And if his microscopic ERA continues as this season soldiers on, he will add another impressive chapter to an already historic career thus far.

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