00:00All right, I got to ask, because this Shohei story is really wild.
00:05What is wrong with him in your mind?
00:08Is it the injury? Is it the bicep? Is it the knee? Is it the head? Is it the swing?
00:13What is going on with the Tommy?
00:14Matt, that is the million-dollar question.
00:16The question that is flooding my DMs for the last several weeks literally is that.
00:22Is it the knee? Is it his injured left knee that he may need a procedure on at the end
00:26of the season?
00:27Is it the right bicep soreness that he was suffering towards the tail end of July and early August
00:32as he was trying to ramp up his pitching to try to return to the mound,
00:36which they ultimately ended up scratching that dream,
00:38especially after acquiring Terry Scoobble at the trade deadline?
00:42Is it his neck? He had a neck injury that was bothering him for a while.
00:46Is it his swing? What is it?
00:47Look, I think there's two things here.
00:50I think that we live in a world where multiple things are possible,
00:54where as he was dealing with this lingering knee issue throughout the course of the season
00:59and the right biceps as he was trying to come back to the mound but still remain a hitter in
01:03the lineup,
01:05that all of it put his swing off.
01:07As you know, Matt, whenever we have an injury, we tend to overcompensate the rest of our body.
01:12And when you're an elite athlete and you're a baseball player and you're in the batter's box,
01:16it can affect a lot of different things with your swing, and it can affect his timing.
01:20It can affect where his hip might be opening up, his right front leg.
01:25It could affect mentally maybe where you're swinging at pitches that you wouldn't normally swing at.
01:31I see all of the above happening.
01:33Do I think Otani is 100% healthy? No.
01:36Do I think he's healthy enough, as he admitted to us yesterday in the media during the Dodgers workout,
01:41that it shouldn't be affecting his numbers and offense at the plate? Yes.
01:46So right now I think the problem is between the ears for Shohei Otani.
01:49And we have seen Otani over the years when he's wrong, when he's in a slump, when he's struggling,
01:57when his swing is not right, when his timing is not right,
02:00he looks like we're seeing the Otani look like so far here through the, what are we at now,
02:06first six games of the postseason for him, right, where he's chasing balls outside the zone.
02:11He doesn't look like, we know what Shohei Otani looks like in the batter's box.
02:15I mean, we're coming up on the one-year anniversary of maybe the single greatest postseason game by an individual
02:20ever played
02:21against the Brewers to close him out and send him to the World Series in 2025.
02:24Ten strikeouts on the mound.
02:26Three home runs at the plate.
02:29We don't see that guy.
02:31That's not the guy that's been stepping into the box these first six games of the postseason.
02:34And I will remind people that, you know, in 2024, he scuffled a bit.
02:40He dealt with the shoulder injury in the World Series against the Yankees, and he wasn't right.
02:44His batting average dipped around 200.
02:47But I think the biggest thing for fans and what we're seeing with our eyes is that the home run
02:50numbers aren't there at all.
02:52Zero home runs, I believe, since August 16th, since he came back.
02:56Those are just numbers we're not used to for Otani.
03:00So, again, I think it's between the ears, Matt.
03:03I think his timing is off.
03:04I think everything he's been dealing with this year has put his swing off.
03:09He's doing everything he can to try to fix it.
03:11He doesn't believe watching the game will fix it.
03:15And as you may know, the Dodgers don't tell Shohei Otani what to do as far as benching him here
03:21in Game 3 or 4.
03:22Shohei Otani tells the Dodgers what he is going to do.
03:24And he had told them yesterday, no, I am absolutely going to play.
03:28The only way I can get better is play.
03:30And the Dodgers accepted that.
03:32And, look, I kind of get it.
03:34Sometimes you have to save the player from yourself or do what you need to save the season.
03:37But this is a guy who has already won you two World Series.
03:40You would not be in this position going for a three-peat without him.
03:42So if he says, I want to stay in and try to work this out at the plate in the
03:47box,
03:48then I guess that's what you do when you go down with the ship.
03:50Because it's not just him struggling.
03:51Will Smith struggling at the plate.
03:52There's a lot of guys not hitting right now in this lineup.
