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LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani spoke passionately Tuesday with Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. He acknowledged that he’s playing with pain.

He flat-out insisted, though, that he can not only play, but that he’s close to being the most feared hitter in the game again.

Roberts listened.

Roberts believed him.

So Ohtani will be back in the Dodgers’ lineup Wednesday for Game 3 (8 p.m. ET FOX) of the National League Championship Series, trying to not only save the Dodgers’ season, but preserve their dynasty.

“He wants to be in there and help us win a ballgame,’’ Roberts said, “and win a championship. … He was very convicted that he is on to something mechanically. He was adamant that he can help us. He's well enough to help us win a baseball game. So that's all I needed to hear.’’

The facts say that Ohtani is compromised, playing with a sore left knee and inflamed right biceps, which is reflected by his ugly slump: No homers since Aug. 18. Batting .157 with one RBI since Aug. 19. Hitting .150 with no extra-base hits and seven strikeouts this postseason.

Roberts told Ohtani that he’d be glad to give him the next game or two off, even with the Dodgers' season on the brink, but Ohtani didn’t want to hear a thing about it.

It would be different if this were the regular season, but not now, not with this urgency.

The Dodgers are down 2 games to zero to the Milwaukee Brewers, and if Ohtani took time off, the next time he might be playing again would be spring training − whenever that is with a looming lockout.

Aaron Boone has the support of one former Yankees manager to keep his job after another failed season ended in the ALDS. 

Former skipper Joe Girardi, the last Yanks manager to lead the team to a World Series title, went to bat for Boone during an appearance on “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman” released Tuesday. 

Indications are Boone will return to The Bronx next season, but calls for his job have come since the Yankees were swept out of the playoffs by the Rays last week. A poll conducted by The Post showed that more than 10,000 out of 12,507 voters wanted to see Boone given the boot. 

But when asked if Boone had a shelf life, Girardi said he didn’t think so. 

“I think you could argue this was his best year of managing,” Girardi said on the show. “I think he got the most out of this team during the course of the season with all they had to deal with. And the way they won games, he had to flip the way they won games. They had to win them from a pitching standpoint, different from some of the years past where they would win by just outslugging people. He couldn’t do that this year. And I think he ran the bullpen extremely well and got the most out of those guys.” 

When it came to one major issue during the 2026 season for the Yankees, Girardi felt it was the lineup but argued that its struggles shouldn’t lie at the feet of Boone. 

“Can you say that that’s his fault? I don’t think so,” Girardi said. “To me, that’s not his fault. I just don’t think the guys had the years that they projected them to have, or some of the guys just aren’t as good as they thought they would be.” 

Boone has managed the Yankees for nine seasons and the ballclub has only reached the World Series once during his time as skipper. 

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani has done very little at the plate for his last 24 games, is dealing with injuries to his left knee and right biceps, and has looked lost at times at the plate during the postseason. Yet the Dodgers are still sticking by their injured super star, with Ohtani set to start yet again in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night.

“He’s adamant he feels good enough to be in there. He’s close to finding something with his swing. I feel great about it,” manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday just before the Dodgers workout at Dodger Stadium. “He was very convicted that he is onto something mechanically. He was adamant that he can help us. He’s well enough to help us win a baseball game. So that’s all I needed to hear.”

Reports after Game 2 in Milwaukee said the Dodgers were considering sitting Ohtani amid his struggles, which include three singles and three walks in 24 plate appearances thus far in October. Roberts on Wednesday made clear if Ohtani sits it wouldn’t be a benching, but rather a reset or recovery day.

“It’s kind of what we did with Freddie [Freeman] in 2024. He was ailing, wasn’t feeling great, give him a couple days potentially to then reset, and he ends up winning the MVP in the World Series,” Roberts said. “It’s more of, ‘Hey man, if you’re not feeling good enough that you feel like you can perform up to your ability, then we’ll pivot, give you a couple days.’”

Ohtani this season has been affected by left knee irritation which caused him to miss the All-Star Game, and he was shut down from pitch after his July 3 start. His attempts to ramp up again pitching were eventually halted, and Ohtani also dealt with right biceps inflammation that landed him on the injured list in September.

“It’s everything. It’s the upper body, it’s the knee, and he’s just not perfect. He’s not,” Roberts said. “But in his words, he’s ready to go.”

Since returning from the injured list, Ohtani has eight hits in 37 at-bats (.216) with one extra-base hit, a double.

“The symptoms have subdued a lot, especially when I was on the IL, spending that time just being able to reduce the symptoms,” Ohtani said Tuesday, through interpreter Will Ireton. “As of now with the swing, it’s a daily process of trying different things, different feel on a daily basis.”

Ohtani hit his last home run on August 18, with 110 plate appearances since and just one run batted in.

“The symptoms shouldn’t be the reason why I can’t hit, and even if the injuries happen by accident, I take full responsibility,” Ohtani said, through Ireton. “I take that as an opportunity for me to just take full responsibility for it. Today it’s going to be another process for me to tinker and try new things.”

After batting second in the Dodgers’ first two playoff games, Ohtani batted fifth in Game 3 of the National League Division Series in Atlanta, and has batted fourth in the three games since. Roberts didn’t say exactly where Ohtani might bat in the lineup in Game 3, but said likely somewhere between second and sixth.

“No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow and the ensuing days,” Roberts said. “At the end of the day in this big moment, we’re listening to Shohei, and we’re going to support the crap out of him and believe in him, and that’s it.”

Shohei Ohtani emerged from the visiting dugout at American Family Field with a bat in his hand, and the mass of media members scattered in foul territory up the third-base line shifted his way, pulled by the magnetic force that is Ohtani’s stardom.

Monday marked the third straight day Ohtani had hit on the field, after a multi-round session off the pitching machine on the workout day and batting practice before each of the first two games of the National League Championship series against the Milwaukee Brewers. But the novelty of the move — Ohtani only took batting practice on the field a few times during the regular season, always in the midst of a slump — had yet to fully wear off.

“The results, take full responsibility,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Tuesday. “That’s all I can really say, why the results haven’t been where I wanted it to be. But I think there’s different approaches to this, whether that be focusing on reducing the symptoms and getting rid of the pain and/or just making sure that I’m moving well in the swing.”

That break of routine for the start of the NLCS did not pay off in terms of results. But after a conversation with Ohtani, manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday that he felt “great” about playing Ohtani in Game 3 of the NLCS, even though Ohtani is still physically compromised by nagging right biceps and left knee problems.

“He’s adamant he feels good enough to be in there,” Roberts said. “He’s close to finding something with his swing. … Yeah, he wants to be in there and help us win a ballgame and win a championship. Great conversation, and I’m excited about having him in there.”

Read more:Dodgers will consider sitting Shohei Ohtani after offense struggles in Game 2 NLCS loss

Roberts made clear that he wasn’t ever considering “benching” Ohtani, but rather weighing whether it would make sense to give him a couple days to “reset,” similar to how they approached Freddie Freeman’s ankle injury in 2024, giving him two days off during that postseason run.

“The symptoms have subdued a lot, especially when I was on the IL, spending that time just being able to reduce the symptoms,” Ohtani said. “As of now with the swing, it’s a daily process of trying different things, different feel on a daily basis.”

Though Ohtani’s arrival kicked off the Dodgers’ back-to-back championships, this isn’t his first time slumping in the postseason. His bat went quiet in the 2024 World Series (two for 19). And between his two-homer game to open last year’s wild-card round, and Game 4 of the NLCS when the two-way star authored the best individual game ever played, he went four for 33.

The difference this time is Ohtani, who has hit three singles in 20 postseason at-bats, isn’t fully healthy. But he was adamant that he would still be able to find a way to produce regardless.

“Over the course of this long season, there’s only really a short period of time when my mechanics is completely in sync,” he said. “So it’s just really kind of just going back and forth, finding the right parts of the swing and managing just the different parts of the swing. So it’s a constant, ongoing process that’s headed in the right direction.”

When healthy, Ohtani has the ability to break out of even the most dire of slumps with an otherworldly performance, like that three-homer (as a hitter), 10-strikeout (as a pitcher) all-timer. Opposing pitchers still have taken a cautious approach to facing him.

This version of Ohtani, however, hasn’t hit a home run since Aug. 18, a little over three weeks before he landed on the injured list. He’d played through nagging knee and biceps injuries for most of the season. But by the first week of September, the Dodgers could no longer argue that his poor performance wasn’t necessarily connected to his ailments.

Now, the stakes are as high as ever. Trailing the Brewers 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, the Dodgers desperately need to put themselves in the best possible position to win Game 3 and avoid four straight win-or-go-home contests. And to do so, they need to know what kind of production Ohtani is physically capable of.

“I’ve never wavered in my belief in him,” Roberts said. “The work that he’s putting in — shoot, he squared the bunt in Game 2 to potentially get on base. That just speaks to whatever it takes to help the team win. He’s always been about the team, whether it’s hitting first, second, fourth, or wherever, right? So for me, just hearing his conviction, that’s what I wanted to hear.”

The communication between Ohtani and the team on injuries has been a work in progress in his third year with the Dodgers.

“We certainly had a lot of communication with him throughout the year, and worked together really well in terms of how to go about this,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said in late September.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers' three-peat dreams are on life support as the deflated heroes return home

“And I think in his mind, he just thought that what he was dealing with was more minor, because it wasn’t like he would see a doctor and go, ‘Oh my God, you have this ailment.’ There were just a number of different things that were bothering him. And I think in his mind, he thought the best way to help the team was to go out and play, which I respect. But us staying really connected and sharing that information, I think, will be really important going forward.

“And again, the communication back and forth has been awesome. The fully sharing exactly how he’s feeling, maybe not as awesome. But again, I would rather [have] that with a guy than the other side of that.”

So, Ohtani kept trying to work his way back to the mound for weeks after receiving a lubricating Orthovisc injection in his knee at the beginning of the All-Star break. And when his biceps injury flared again, and the discomfort extended up through his neck, the Dodgers put off an IL move as long as possible.

Roberts said Ohtani’s conviction lined up with what the manager was hearing from the Dodgers hitting coaches and medical staff.

“No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow and the ensuing days,” Roberts said. “At the end of the day in this big moment, we’re listening to Shohei, and we’re going to support the crap out of him and believe in him, and that’s it.”

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Probable pitchers: Rays’ RHP Freddy Peralta vs. Guardians’ LHP Parker Messick

Where to watch: TBS/HBO MAX, TruTV, Univision/ TUDN

The Guardians come into tonight’s Game 2 of the ALCS looking to take control of the series, while the Rays hope to even the series before heading up to Cleveland.

Tampa Bay and Cleveland came into Game 1 of the ALCS off of very different ALDS performances. The Rays breezed through a sweep of the Yankees, having only allowed five runs across the three games. Cleveland, on the other hand, came back from a 0-2 deficit to win three in a row and send the Chicago White Sox home in the most dramatic of this year’s Division Series. And so, as we’ve seen many times in baseball before, Game 1 saw the hot team beat the rested team, with the Guardians stealing a game in Tropicana Field.

Game 1 was won largely off the brilliance of José Ramírez and rookie Chase DeLauter. The Maryland-born DeLauter got Cleveland on the board with a solo HR in the 6th, setting the stage for Cleveland’s comeback. After Patrick Bailey homer tied it at 2 in the 7th, before Ramírez and DeLauter sparked the winning rally in the 8th.

J-Ram started the inning with a single and move to third on DeLauter’s double. Nathaniel Lowe then singled up the middle off Tyler Wells to give the Guardians a 4-2 and put them up for good. Cedric Mullins hit a solo homer in the bottom of the 8th to cut the deficit in half, but Ramírez and DeLauter would spark a three-run rally in the 9th to seal Cleveland’s victory.

Game 2 now sees a matchup of All-Stars Freddy Peralta and Parker Messick. Peralta continued his resurgence with the Rays in Game 2 of the ALDS, putting up a line of 4.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB and 3 Ks in a 5-2 win over the Yankees. That start lowered Peralta’s ERA to 3.15 since joining the Rays at the trade deadline, and 1.10 since the beginning of September.

The rookie southpaw Messick was brilliant in the regular season, but only so-so in two games against the White Sox. He took the loss in Game 1 against Chicago after allowing 2 runs across 4.2 IP while striking out six. In Game 4, he exited early due to a lack of control, walking 4 and allowing 2 runs in only 2.1 innings. Messick had a 1.35 ERA across 13.1 innings with 15 Ks against the Rays in the regular season. Peralta did not face the Guardians this year, last pitching against Cleveland in a 5-0 loss last year with Milwaukee.

Perhaps unexpected results in both games yesterday, though the Brewers won more games in the regular season than the Dodgers. Still, you’d probably have got long odds against Milwaukee winning the games started by both Skubal and Yamamoto. Still, they go to Los Angeles, knowing that they cannot be eliminated there. The Brewers either win the series there, or it’ll be returning to Milwaukee. Certainly, the Dodgers have not looked great this postseason especially on offense. They currently have a playoff OPS of just .591, which is the worst of the eight teams to get past the wild-card round. And that’s despite leading the post-season in HR, with eight.

Mind you, the overall OPS across all the playoffs is just .633, which is the lowest for a season since 1983. Pitching usually does tighten up in the post-season: the OPS there has been below .700 four of the past five years. But this year, it’s been a spectacular drop-off in offense. Anyway, just the one game today, the Rays seeking to even their series after an unexpected meltdown by their bullpen yesterday.

• Cleveland Guardians @ Tampa Bay Rays (1-0): 5 pm, TBS/HBO Max

Game two of the ALCS, the Guardians won game one.

The starters tonight are Parker Messick (12-9, 2.56) for the Guardians and Freddy Peralta (10-11, 4.42) for the Rays. I picked up Parker in trade in OOTP Baseball, and he’s been pretty good for me.

I’m not cheering for either team. I figured that, while watching yesterdays game that I would figure out who I was cheering for, but I just enjoyed watching, without picking a team.

Now the Brewers Dodgers series, I know who I’m cheering for.

Lineups:

So Go Baseball Go.

Shohei Ohtani, physically diminished and mired in one of the worst slumps of his major league career, will remain in the lineup for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday, Oct. 13.

Ohtani, 32, has just three singles in 20 at-bats this postseason, with seven strikeouts and three walks. He has not hit a home run since Aug. 18, and finished the regular season batting .160 with a .284 on-base percentage over his final 88 plate appearances. The Dodgers finally put him on the injured list in early September, a concession to left knee and right biceps injuries that hampered him much of this season and reduced him to a one-way player.

It's a significant contrast from last postseason, when Ohtani hit eight home runs in 84 plate appearances, posted a .405 OBP and 1.096 OPS, while pitching at least once every series. The Dodgers won their second consecutive World Series, in seven games over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Facing a 2-0 deficit in this NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers, Roberts held a long conversation with Ohtani in the off day before Game 3 and emerged confident Ohtani will begin producing.

"The word I would use is conviction: He was very convicted that he's on to something mechanically," Roberts told reporters in Los Angeles. "He was adamant that he can help us, he's well enough to help us win a baseball game. That's all we needed to hear."

The biggest question in baseball has finally been answered.

Shohei Ohtani will remain in the Dodgers’ starting lineup for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night.

Manager Dave Roberts announced that decision during an off-day workout on Tuesday, confirming that Ohtani will continue as the Dodgers’ designated hitter despite an ongoing slump at the plate amid injuries to his left knee and right arm.

“He’s adamant he feels good enough to be in there,” Roberts said. “He’s close to finding something with his swing. I feel great about it.”

Ohtani took the podium at Dodger Stadium after Roberts’ address, speaking to reporters for the first time since the start of the playoffs, and shared similar confidence in his ability to turn things around.

“The symptoms shouldn’t be the reason why I can’t hit,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton, adding that he takes “full responsibility” for his lack of results so far this October.

“The No. 1 priority is for the team to win,” he added. “So whether that be for me to contribute on the offensive side, I do want to feel confident in the approach that I’m taking on that day, whether that be mechanical or anything else. So that’s really just been my focus overall.”

Over the previous 24 hours, speculation about a potential Ohtani benching had run rampant around the start of this year’s NLCS.

The injury-plagued superstar had his worst performance of an already arduous postseason in Monday’s Game 2 loss to the Brewers, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts while the Dodgers stumbled to a 2-0 hole in the best-of-seven series. 

With Ohtani’s batting average down to .150 in this year’s playoffs, including no extra-base hits or RBIs, Roberts first raised the possibility of removing the four-time MVP from the lineup in postgame comments he made to The Athletic on Monday night.

However, a source with knowledge of the situation later said the decision would come down to whether Ohtani still felt healthy enough to continue in his role as the two-time defending champion’s DH.

And, in a meeting with Roberts, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes in the manager’s office earlier Thursday afternoon, Ohtani strongly expressed that he did.

“He was very convicted that he is onto something mechanically,” Roberts said. “He was adamant that he can help us, he’s well enough to help us win a baseball game. So that’s all I needed to hear.”

Entering October, the Dodgers knew Ohtani’s injury issues would be difficult to manage. The two-way star had been at less than 100% since June, when he first developed a left knee problem that ultimately sidelined him as a pitcher. His right arm ailment had also become increasingly problematic down the stretch of the regular season, forcing him to spend two weeks on the injured list in September and contributing to a home run drought that dates back to Aug. 18.

“It’s everything,” Roberts said when asked specifically what is ailing Ohtani most right now. “It’s the upper body, it’s the knee. He’s just not perfect. He’s not.” But in his words, he’s ready to go.”

Still, the club has remained hopeful about what the 32-year-old slugger might be able to provide at the plate in the playoffs.

Even after he collected only two hits in the NL Division Series and was dropped in the batting order from the two-hole to the Nos. 4/5 spots, Roberts and Friedman insisted the superstar would eventually make a more consistent impact at the plate.

On Tuesday, Roberts doubled down.

“We’re better with him in the lineup,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

Granted, that wasn’t the case on Monday, when Ohtani had his worst postseason performance yet. He struck out twice, failed to reach base safely for the first time in this year’s playoffs and looked glaringly out of sync with a number of awkward, uncomfortable swings.

But, Roberts said his confidence in the slugger has “never wavered” and clarified that his Monday night comments were not intended to be taken as a potential “benching.”

“It’s more of [asking him], ‘Hey, man, if you’re not feeling good enough that you feel like you can perform up to your ability, then we’ll pivot, give you a couple days,'” Roberts said, comparing Ohtani’s situation to that of Freddie Freeman’s in the 2024 playoffs, when the first baseman was given several off days in the early rounds of the postseason before going on to win MVP honors in the World Series.

“Talking to [Ohtani], he feels like he’s close to finding something and was close yesterday in finding something mechanically,” Roberts added. “With that, I’m excited. I’m all about it. So he’ll be in there.”

Roberts’ hope is that Ohtani will take all the renewed questions about his performance as a “personal challenge.”

“All great players have that in the biggest moments,” he said. “They expect to perform more than anyone.”

Whether Ohtani can do that in his current condition remains to be seen.

But for now, he will at least continue to get the opportunity, with the club deciding against the drastic move of dropping him to the bench.

“At the end of the day, in this big moment, we’re listening to Shohei,” Roberts said. “We’re going to support the crap out of him and believe in him, and that’s it.”