Dodgers won 4 straight without Ohtani, but the sample says little

A four-game win streak during Ohtani's brief injury absence featured unchanged scoring pace and a soft schedule — not evidence the Dodgers can do without their MVP over a real stretch.

Published: September 7, 2026 · Figures as of September 7, 2026

Asked: The Dodgers keep winning without Ohtani. Do they even need him right now?

Yes, but on a four-game sample against soft pitching — not a real answer yet

Shohei Ohtani hasn't played since September 2. He's on the current injury report with right biceps soreness, first flagged September 3, and the report's own return timeline points to today, September 7 — so this is a short absence, not an ongoing situation. Over the four games he's missed (September 3–6), the Dodgers went 4-0, extending their streak to four straight.

The offense didn't skip a beat, but it also didn't take off. The Dodgers scored 5.25 runs per game in those four games — identical to their 5.25 runs per game over the four games immediately before, when Ohtani was still batting. Schedule-adjusted, that's +0.77 runs per game above what Washington and St. Louis were allowing coming in, a modest bump, not a surge. Run prevention looked much better (3.75 allowed per game, down from 6.0 in the prior window), but that swing owes more to facing Washington (5.10 runs allowed/game on the season, near the bottom of the league) and a shorthanded outing from a Cardinals lineup than to anything about Ohtani's absence, since he wasn't fielding a defensive position anyway.

Who covered the offense:

• Teoscar Hernandez: 6 RBI, 5-for-13, a 1.222 OPS across the stretch — well above his .702 mark before it
• Mookie Betts: 5 RBI, a home run, 1.009 OPS over the window
• Tommy Edman: 7 hits in 17 at-bats, .924 OPS
• Freddie Freeman: 1.017 OPS in 3 games

Why "they don't need him" doesn't hold up over any real stretch. Ohtani is the team's home run leader this season — 30 in 129 games, to go with a .279 average, 80 RBI and 79 walks — and he's also thrown 85.2 innings as a starter at a 1.79 ERA with 95 strikeouts across 14 outings, one of the best marks on a rotation that includes Yamamoto (2.67) and Skubal (2.86). He's won NL MVP each of the last two seasons. Four games without him, against two teams that aren't strong pitching staffs, is not the sample that answers whether a 86-57 team (2nd in MLB, 1.5 games behind Milwaukee, first in the NL West) can carry on without its best two-way player over a real stretch — especially with October approaching.

One thing worth flagging: Teoscar Hernandez's jump (.702 to 1.222 OPS) is the largest change on the roster over this stretch, bigger than anything tied directly to the Ohtani gap.

Confidence: Low that the Dodgers "don't need" Ohtani. The evidence for the last four games is real but thin — unchanged scoring pace, a soft schedule, and a return already on the calendar for today. Nothing here says anything about how this team performs without him over a meaningful stretch or in October.