Pedro Martinez Issues Blunt Warning To Dodgers After Shohei Ohtani Clears Position Change Desire

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a championship problem—their superstar Shohei Ohtani wants to do everything. Fresh off making baseball history with 50 home runs and 50 strikeouts as a pitcher, Ohtani now wants to play outfield, too. But Hall of Fame legend Pedro Martinez sees danger ahead and isn’t staying quiet about it. With October just around the corner, the Dodgers must decide: let their two-way phenom take on even more, or protect him from burning out when they need him most.

Tuesday nights are perfect demonstrations of basically why Martinez is totally worried. Ohtani just shut the Philadelphia Phillies down, five perfect innings, five K’s, 68 pitches. His fastball was cruising in at 99 mph, his breaking balls were unhittable, and the Phillies were like sitting ducks. From there came the icing on it all: Ohtani hit 50 homers for the year, becoming the first player to ever make 50 home runs and strike out 50 batters in the same season.

When Pedro Martinez speaks about postseason pressure, people listen. The Hall of Fame pitcher has been there, won that, and earned three Cy Young awards doing it. So when he fired off a warning on social media, it hit hard: “I hope to see Shohei Ohtani play with confidence heading into the postseason and perform at the level we know he can. I just hope he doesn’t get overexposed and that he delivers against a very strong Phillies team.” Translation? Stop pushing your superstar before he breaks.

But Ohtani isn’t backing down. The Japanese sensation recently dropped a bombshell—he’s willing to play outfield in the playoffs, too. “I’ve been having various conversations with different people, and that topic has come up as well,” Ohtani said. “That applies to the mound, and possibly even the outfield. If I end up going as a reliever, then depending on what follows, there could be situations where I also need to play defense in the outfield.” Here’s the catch: Ohtani has played outfield just seven times in the majors, totaling barely 8⅓ innings back in 2021 with the Angels. He never even got a real chance to catch a ball. Yet he’s ready to add a third job to his already impossible workload.

Martinez’s warning proved prophetic faster than anyone expected. Just hours after his cautionary message, the exact nightmare scenario he feared would unfold right at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers were about to learn the hard way why you don’t mess with perfection.

Phillies expose Dodgers’ pitching depth issues despite Ohtani’s dominance

The reality check on Tuesday night went shockingly in favor of Martinez and against the idea of managing workloads. Standing in their way were the resurgent Philadelphia Phillies, who triumphed over the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-6, with Rafael Marchon sealing the game with a big three-run homer off Blake Treinen with two outs in the ninth. That was a most painful loss after Ohtani had so majestically already dominated on the mound, going five innings with no hits allowed, before hitting his 50th home run of the season from the other side of the plate to tie the game at 6-6 in the bottom of the eighth.

Ohtani was brilliant early, striking out five and walking one while throwing 42 of 68 pitches for strikes in his 13th mound start. He retired his final 13 batters before the Dodgers carefully pulled him, managing his workload after two elbow surgeries. The crowd of 44,063 at Dodger Stadium wasn’t happy to see reliever Justin Wrobleski enter the game. Their concerns proved justified as Wrobleski immediately loaded the bases with three consecutive singles.

Bryce Harper wasted no time going to work.

He hit an opposite-field two-run double on the very first pitch he saw. Then came Brandon Marsh, who silenced Dodger Stadium with that three-run bomb to right field. The boos intensified as Dave Roberts dismissed Justin Wrobleski from the mound, and his ERA swelled to 4.52. Things only grew worse as Edgardo Henriquez offered a meatball to Max Kepler, who hit a solo homer to right field.

The Dodgers started with power–Alex Call clanged one 408 feet in the 2nd, and Enrique Hernández followed with a 415-foot towering blast off Cristopher Sánchez. But it didn’t matter much.

With Ohtani’s clutch homer tying the score, the Dodgers then loaded the bases once again. After Alex Call’s willing sacrifice fly and tying the game, Rafael Marchon put the nail firmly in the Dodgers’ hearts with a ninth-inning blast. Game over. The collapse was of epic proportions and the kind that would keep Martinez up at night over shaky pitching depth come October.

The painful truths sank in: The Dodgers were on a tightrope between protecting a damn-near once-in-a-lifetime talent and chasing that championship ring that they so sorely desire.