Rob Parker didn’t come to play nice. The longtime MLB Network analyst went on MLB Now on Thursday and basically said the quiet part out loud: Shohei Ohtani should hang up his spikes as a pitcher. For good. Like, forever. Not just this season. Not just until his knee heals. Forever.
“Not only should they shut him down from pitching for the rest of the season, but forever!” Parker said. “Enough with the pitching! I want him to be in the lineup every day. I want him to hit, I don’t want him to pitch anymore.”
It’s the kind of take that gets you pilloried on Twitter within minutes. And yeah, Ohtani’s fans came for Parker. But here’s the thing: he might not be entirely wrong, even if the timing is brutal.
Ohtani just threw a bullpen session that went fine, whatever that means for a guy who’s had multiple elbow surgeries and now a cranky left knee that keeps him from pitching on a normal schedule. He’s made only a handful of starts this season for the Dodgers. The dream of him winning both the MVP and Cy Young in the same year is dead. That window closed when the knee started barking and the starts got spaced out like a pitcher on a rehab assignment.
Parker’s argument leans hard on the postseason. Ohtani has one loss, no wins, and a 7.56 ERA in the World Series. The Dodgers just won back-to-back titles. They barely squeaked past Toronto in last year’s Fall Classic, and if Ohtani had been pitching at full strength, maybe that series doesn’t go six games. But he wasn’t. And they still won.
But he’s still a unicorn at the plate
Let’s not get it twisted. Ohtani is hitting .283 with 22 homers and 60 RBIs. His OPS is .917. He’s still the most dangerous hitter in almost any lineup. And when his arm is right, he’s got a 1.79 ERA with 95 strikeouts in 85-plus innings. That’s not computer simulation. That’s real.
The problem is that his last couple starts were rough. And July has been a struggle at the plate too. You can draw a straight line from the knee soreness to the dip in performance on both sides of the ball.
Parker’s core point isn’t about ability. It’s about risk. The Dodgers don’t need Ohtani to pitch to win. They proved that. They won it all with him mostly hitting and occasionally taking the mound. If you take pitching off the table entirely, you get a full-time DH who stays healthier, plays 150 games, and still crushes baseballs. That’s a monster player. Just not a two-way monster.
Ohtani himself has no interest in that. The man wants to pitch. The Dodgers intend to get him back on the mound before the regular season ends. The team knows what he can do when he’s healthy. They’re not gonna pull the plug because a TV analyst says so.
But Parker’s take lives in a place where people don’t say these things aloud. He said it. And now we get to watch Ohtani try to prove him wrong. That’s pretty good theater.
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