Shohei Ohtani won't play in All-Star Game; Kiké Hernández won't go to White House

LOS ANGELES - Two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani is done with pitching for the unofficial first half of the season.

He did not take the mound Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks and he will not participate in the All-Star Game next week, the Dodgers announced.

Ohtani will still serve as the designated hitter through the weekend series, the team said. But the irritation in his left knee, which is aggravated by pitching, has not resolved. So, over the All-Star break, he will undergo "some interventions," preventing him from traveling to Philadelphia for the All-Star Game.

Those interventions will include draining his left knee, as manager Dave Roberts confirmed before the game Friday, and likely an injection, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Because the problem lingered, the break presented an opportunity to address it before the second half. This knee injury is not believed to necessarily be connected to the bipartite patella condition that Ohtani addressed with surgery in 2019.

"The goal is October, for all of our players," Roberts said. "He's had the Cy Young in mind, and understandably so. But nothing is going to come in front of being healthy for October. And so for him to concede and miss a start for the best interest of him and you know the team, that's not a surprise. And so, those are two separate things. But No. 1 [is] being ready for October, and he's always kind of said that."

The decision doesn't automatically remove him from the Cy Young conversation, but his workload, lessened by the six-man rotation, was already the biggest adjustment to his campaign.

The procedure is scheduled for Sunday, Roberts said, so he'll likely be cleared to serve as the designated hitter Friday against the Yankees coming out of the break.

Ohtani, who entered Friday with a .939 OPS, the third-best mark among qualified NL hitters, and a 1.79 ERA, the second-best mark among NL pitchers with 50-plus innings pitched, has been dealing with irritation in his knee for roughly a month.

He exited the June 11 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates with inflammation in his left knee and sat out the next day. But he's played through the problem since. Friday marked the first time Ohtani has missed a pitching start this season for the knee injury.

Ohtani said then that he suspected problems with his pitching mechanics were to blame for the discomfort in his knee. He did not say whether he believed his previous kneecap condition was a factor.

Though this is the first time Ohtani has skipped a pitching start, the Dodgers did push back his last start on the mound by two days. Originally scheduled to pitch in Sacramento on July 1, the Dodgers cited rest for the two-way player in the midst of 13 straight days on the team's schedule without an off day.

Ohtani then held the Padres to three runs in six innings on July 3, throwing 110 pitches. In his next at-bat, he felt tightness in his right biceps, putting his next start into question.

His biceps ailment, however, quickly resolved with a day off. Roberts said it didn't bother Ohtani throwing over the next week.

Still, with the change in rotation schedule, and Ohtani back to full-time two-way duties for the first time since 2023, he wasn't expected to pitch in the All-Star Game or participate in the home run derby even before Friday's news.

His new plans to address the irritation in his knee wiped out the couple All-Star at-bats he was penciled in for as the starting designated hitter for the National League squad. Immediately after the procedure, Dodgers wanted to avoid the added swelling that comes with air travel.

Ohtani claimed his sixth consecutive All-Star selection with the most Phase 1 fan votes of any player.

Kiké Hernández isn't going to White House

Dodgers utility player Kiké Hernández confirmed what he posted as a comment on Instagram: he won't be going to the White House on July 23, when President Trump will honor the team for its 2025 World Series championship.

Instead, Hernández (strained left oblique) is scheduled to be on a minor league rehab assignment.

"It's going to be hard to be in two cities at the same time," Hernández said. "If I was active, I probably wouldn't have gone anyways."

Why?

"I'd rather take a day off than do team activities," he said.

Last year, Hernández expressed his support for immigrants in Los Angeles on social media amid ICE raids authorized by the Trump administration.

The White House visit will be on a day off in the middle of a nine-game East Coast trip.

"I'm sure a lot of guys are going to participate and be there, and this is an individual choice," Roberts said. "But I do expect a lot of our guys to be there."

Scheduling conflicts when the Dodgers played the Nationals in Washington on April 3-5 pushed back the trip.

"This took a long time to get both sides together, and, honestly, like I've always said, my company line, my personal line is I hope that we get this invitation every year," Roberts said. "Because that's the goal: to win a championship, to get this invitation to the White House. And I'm not a politician, and I'm doing something that teams have done for decades. And so that's where I stand, really. I'm a baseball coach. That's what I do."

Back in 2019, Roberts suggested that he might not accept an invitation to the White House with Trump in office. But he did attend last year when the Dodgers celebrated their 2024 title.

Roberts said the Dodgers found out earlier this week that the White House visit had been scheduled, according to Roberts.

"There was a lot of unknown," Roberts said. "It's an off day, and then how could we work this out logistically?"

That set off "a lot of phone calls, texts, and communication internally."

Hernández's injury rehab has moved along more quickly than Roberts initially expected. He landed on the injury list in late May after playing in just two games following offseason surgery on his left elbow.

"He looks normal," Roberts said last weekend. "I'm not saying miraculous, but I'm really in disbelief how well he responded, given the injury."

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