Time for Dodgers Shohei Ohtani to be shut down as pitcher to boost October hopes

Enough already.No more bullpen sessions.No more simulated games.Shohei Ohtani is being told what to do by his throbbing left knee and aching right biceps, and it’s time for him to listen.He has to abandon his vision of pitching again this season.Ohtani returning to the mound only makes sense if he can be a difference-maker as a pitcher, and what are the chances of that happening now that he’s been scratched from his tentatively scheduled one-inning start on Sunday in Detroit?As it was, Ohtani already was in a time crunch to prepare himself to be a full-fledged starter by October, manager Dave Roberts admitting that building him up to make a five-inning start in the playoffs would be “aggressive.”Ohtani is more than a designated hitter, more than a pitcher, and even more than a two-way player.He’s a game-changer, and the only place in which he can be that for the Dodgers in October is in the batter’s box.In that case, what’s the point of him pitching, other than that he wants to?The Dodgers traded for Tarik Skubal so they wouldn’t have to count on Ohtani to pitch, and now that Skubal is here, they might as well take advantage of that and focus Ohtani’s attention to the area in which he could help them most.Which is on offense.With Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow as their other starting pitching options, the Dodgers still have a championship-caliber rotation without Ohtani.What they don’t have at the moment is a World Series offense.“I gotta think about what I can do to spur this offense,” Roberts told reporters in Detroit.“I don’t know right now as I sit here.

These are our guys that have performed.I believe in them.

But I don’t know the answer, as far as making changes and things like that, whether it’s lineup construction.”The simplest solution would be to get Ohtani back on track.The Dodgers don’t score when he’s not hitting, a point reinforced on their current roadtrip.With Ohtani batting just .18...