Everything we know about Shohei Ohtani's injury. Plus, latest on Rays' stadium situation

By now, you’ve undoubtedly seen your share of the comparisons between Kirk Gibson and Freddie Freeman. Game 1, Dodgers trail by a run with two outs in the ninth, and the left-handed hitter with a lower-body injury hits a walk-off home run.

The similarities were uncanny — down to the fact that they both happened at 8:37 p.m. PT. 

One distinction: Freeman’s walk-off grand slam was the first of its kind in World Series history. The fact that it came after such a tribulation-filled 2024 season for Freeman and his family gave the moment even more gravity. 

Game 2 wasn’t quite as dramatic (though the Yankees did make it close in the ninth; more on that later). Yoshinobu Yamamoto looked every bit the major signing he was, going 6 1/3 innings and allowing just one run on one hit (a solo home run by Juan Soto). Meanwhile, the Dodgers offense wasn’t overpowering, but it didn’t have to be. A 4-2 score isn’t a blowout, but the Dodgers look very much like the juggernaut we expected them to be after last offseason’s spending spree. 

Just to be a contrarian, since we’re talking about historical parallels, here’s what happened the last two times these teams faced off in the World Series: 

1981: Yankees take a 2-0 lead, Dodgers win the next four.
1978: Dodgers take a 2-0 lead, Yankees win the next four.

We will not know for sure until later today that Shohei Ohtani will be in the Dodgers’ lineup for Game 3 of the World Series. But all signs continue to be good, indicating that what Ohtani experienced Saturday night was not as serious as it appeared.

To recap: Ohtani suffered an apparent injury sliding into second base on an attempted steal in the seventh inning of Game 2, with the Dodgers leading 4-1. He was in obvious pain, rolling on the dirt, then slowly getting to his feet before an athletic trainer helped him walk off the field, supporting his left arm.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani had a subluxation in his left shoulder, a condition that occurs when the ball at the top of the upper arm bone comes out of the socket only partially, as opposed to completely, which happens during a dislocation.

Speaking to reporters at Yankee Stadium yesterday, Roberts again was positive, saying Ohtani continued to show good range of motion and strength. Roberts cautioned that Ohtani still had to go through a workout that night, and that the Dodgers still did not have the results of his MRI. But clearly, Roberts’ expectation was that Ohtani would play.

“I think he’s obviously very well aware of himself and his body,” Roberts said. “So if he feels good enough to go, then I see no reason why he wouldn’t be in there.”

Roberts said the question for Ohtani will be pain tolerance, adding he should not be compromised when batting. Ohtani is a left-handed hitter, so his left shoulder is his back shoulder. The front shoulder is more important to a hitter’s swing.

“Subluxation” is a scary-sounding word, but it became familiar in the baseball lexicon in 2021, when the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. reportedly popped out his shoulder at least four times. Tatis initially did not undergo surgery, believing his shoulder to be stable. But he reversed course in September 2022 while serving an 80-game suspension for using a banned performance-enhancing substance. Doctors repaired the labrum in his left shoulder. Tatis recovered by the time he was reinstated in April 2023. And that season, he appeared in 141 games.

Might Ohtani eventually meet the same fate? Perhaps, if he endures repeated subluxations. Treatment for shoulder instability includes both non-operative and surgical options, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. 

Ohtani, of course, is still recovering from major surgery on his right elbow, with the expectation he will pitch again in 2025. But even after stealing 59 bases this season as a full-time designated hitter, he almost certainly will limit his attempts once he returns to the mound, reducing the wear and tear on his body.

It’s not that the Yankees have looked terrible the first two games. They were one out away from winning the first game, and had a chance for a symmetrical response in Game 2, with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. But they’re coming up short, and they’re running out of time to remedy that.

There are two major themes that appear to be plaguing the Yankees:

• Aaron Judge is struggling. Still. It’s not specific to this World Series, either. His career regular-season line is .288/.406/.604 (1.010 OPS). In the postseason, it’s .199/.304/.436 (.740). In the first two games of this series, he’s 1-for-9 with six strikeouts. It’s not unprecedented for stars to struggle in the World Series, but that’s hardly comforting for Judge or Yankees fans right now.Judge has won three Silver Sluggers and seems almost a lock to win his second MVP this year. Down 2-0, the Yankees need him to be that guy, and fast.
• Aaron Boone’s decisions haven’t worked out. It’s easy to roast a manager in retrospect, but — even though Nestor Cortes was added to the roster specifically to deal with the Dodgers’ left-handed hitters — it was certainly a risk for that situation in Game 1 to be a guy’s first game action in 37 days.Then in the ninth inning of Game 2, with the bases loaded, Boone pinch hit backup catcher Jose Trevino for Austin Wells. Trevino is a career .243 hitter against lefties (Wells: .181). But he’s defense-first catcher, and has only hit .189 against them this year. Didn’t the Yankees have a better option?

  Not really. Jasson Domínguez is a switch hitter, but only hit .111 against left-handers this year (and .185 in the minors). Trent Grisham? .211 (and he’s left-handed). Even Oswaldo Cabrera, who Boone pinch ran for Rizzo, only hit .190 against southpaws this year. It’s not Boone’s fault that Jon Berti (.259) suffered a hip flexor strain in the ALCS. (But it is morbidly ironic that Berti is the guy whose spot was taken by Cortes, isn’t it?)

  Question or defend the decisions as you see fit, but neither worked out, and the Yankees are in a pickle now.

Game 3 is tonight, as Clarke Schmidt gets the call for the Yankees at home, while Walker Buehler gets the nod for the Dodgers (8:08 p.m. ET, Fox or Fubo).

For those who work in baseball, there really is no point in the calendar in which they can take an extended break. Maybe in the first round or two of the playoffs, but even now, teams are preparing contract offers and putting the finishing touches on their free-agency plan, since that process starts when the World Series ends. 

For the Rays, there’s one more major task to add to the whiteboard: figuring out where they are going to play their home games next year, after Tropicana Field’s roof was destroyed by Hurricane Milton.

What we already knew: It’s not likely to be Nashville or Salt Lake City. What we learned over the weekend: Commissioner Rob Manfred expects the team to have this problem sorted by Christmas.

It seems like an awfully quick pivot, but it makes sense. There are so many logistics involved in a big-league season. Travel, accommodations, vendors, marketing … not to mention that any ballpark that can handle a big-league baseball game is almost certainly going to have an existing tenant.

So, sure — there’s only two months to Christmas. But there’s only a little over three months between then and Opening Day.

Manfred also spoke about TV ratings (they’re good), revenue (this World Series matchup helps), the Olympics (no updates), the grass in Sacramento (a “modest” investment) and Taco Bell. Yes, Taco Bell. Evan Drellich has it all here. 

MLB veterans Jameson Taillon, Tucker Barnhart, Max Stassi and Rob Refsnyder joined The Athletic’s live blog for Games 1 and 2. Here’s what we learned from them. 

Weirder things have worked: The Yankees are hoping that wearing the 1990s turtlenecks — the real ones — can give them a bit of postseason magic. 

So far, the MLB definition of a check swing is, in practice, “ehhhh, yeah looked like it to me?” But they’re testing a new system in the Arizona Fall League. There are no plans to implement it in the big leagues yet, though. It’s “nothing more than proof of concept at this time.”

A couple of off-the-field culture notes on the World Series: We power-ranked the Yankees and Dodgers’ celebrity die-hards, and we asked players who they’re listening to in their earbuds to get ready for games — there’s a whole playlist. 

Most-clicked in Friday’s newsletter: The reader poll results on whether this World Series matchup is good for baseball. Come for the voting numbers, stay for the selection of thoughtful answers.