Timeline: How Shohei Ohtani injury saga with Dodgers reached playoff uncertainty

“Not high.”The night Shohei Ohtani’s injury problems first became prevalent this season, that was how Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described his initial concern level with the two-way star.Months later, of course, the circumstances have ominously flipped.Ohtani is still hurt.He has been shut down as a pitcher.

And on Friday, in what felt like a last-ditch effort to improve his health before the playoffs, he was placed on the injured list for his first time with the Dodgers.“It’s the right thing to do,” Roberts said.“I think that we tried to kick the can as much as we could.”Indeed, the saga dates all the way back to a mid-June series in Pittsburgh; when, a night after making a two-way start, Ohtani was pulled from the team’s subsequent game early with swelling in his left knee.At every step along the way since then, there has been a common pattern of decisions that simply haven’t panned out.All season, the Dodgers and Ohtani routinely downplayed concern surrounding his health status.

In hindsight, they too often seemed too willing to let him push through his ailments, even as he pursued both hitting and pitching duties as an everyday fixture in the lineup.Granted, at most points, there were few obvious answers about what to do in a given moment.And on several occasions, the club did dial down the four-time MVP’s workload amid his ongoing left knee and, later, right arm issues.But the team certainly didn’t think it was barreling toward this place either –– where Ohtani is going on the IL after looking physically diminished at the plate in recent weeks, and still feeling pain even after multiple days out of the starting lineup.“Anyone can do [look back], and say, ‘What could you have done better or different?’ Absolutely,” manager Dave Roberts conceded this week.

“That’s something going forward we’re gonna look at.But it’s certainly not a blame game thing.”Blame game or not, however, Ohtani’s IL stint does bring abou...