HOUSTON -- Shohei Ohtani was early on the 82-mph sweeper that Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. threw to him in a 2-2 count.
It was to almost the same spot as the much harder cutter Ohtani had just fouled off. But Ohtani, starting his swing on time for the fastball, recognized the sweeper early enough to stop this momentum, throw his hands to the ball, and hit a low line drive up the right-field line for a double.
That hit in the third inning of the Dodgers' 12-2 blowout win Wednesday was his first in over a week. He'd gone 18 straight at-bats without a hit. Watching Ohtani grind through the slump, manager Dave Roberts even decided to give Ohtani the day off from hitting when he took the mound Tuesday.
Then on Wednesday -- whether it was the result of that break, or on-field batting practice two days before, or a culmination of work, or some combination of the three -- Ohtani logged two hits and a walk.
"Today was a good day for Shohei," Roberts said.
So, what was going wrong, and how is Ohtani going about trying to make sure his good day becomes the start of an offensive turnaround?
"It has been a little bit longer than my expectation," Ohtani said of his slump Tuesday through interpreter Will Ireton. "I've been getting on base, which is a good thing. I just want to make sure that the quality of balls in play are better. And it's not ideal that I'm trying to find that in the game, but I just have to continue to do what I'm supposed to do."
Overall, this has been a slow offensive start for Ohtani -- during which he also earned National League Pitcher of the Month honors for March and April. After setting the bar uber-high with an OPS over 1.000 in each of the last three seasons, his .831 OPS so far this year has been a noticeable dropoff.
Though Ohtani's bat briefly heated up last homestand, when he recorded two three-hit games in a row, he was out of the batting order the next day because he was pitching on just five days' rest. And then he sunk back into a slump.
As Ohtani pointed out then, slow starts aren't altogether unusual for him. Over the course of his career, May has been his worst offensive month (.899 OPS).
As Ohtani worked through this recent offensive lull, he and the Dodgers hitting coaches looked into his stance -- making sure he wasn't setting up too open or closed -- and the early loading motion in his swing, or the "gather." Cutting the gather short can have a "domino effect," as Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates explained it.
"He's aware of it all," Bates said Monday, after Ohtani took early batting practice on the field. "Just kind of just feeling through it."
On Tuesday, after Ohtani the pitcher held the Astros to two runs in seven innings, he said he'd identified his bat path as the main mechanical issue.
"Usually the posture is what's really important for me," Ohtani said. "But I've come to a conclusion that it's not [the problem right now], and there's a few things that I feel that are in play, in terms of why my bat path isn't the right direction. So I'm going to try to figure that out."
According to Statcast's bat tracking, Ohtani's swing path has been slightly steeper this season (38-degree tilt), compared to last (37 degrees) or the year before (35 degrees). His bat speed is also a tick down from last year -- going from 75.8 to 74.8 mph -- although it’s unclear whether that’s a cause of his struggles or a symptom.
"That could probably play into the fact that he's getting beat on some pitches," Roberts said. "But if you say that [his bat speed is down], which people have talked about that, then is that a sign of a little bit of fatigue in there? Which in turn is why we feel like, give him a day off here and there, and hopefully we can reset him."
Though Ohtani acknowledged that a two-way workload while also trying to fix his swing is a balancing act, he came close to bristling when asked if he was more valuable to the team just focusing on hitting.
"If the team asks me to do that, sure, I'll always do what the team asks me," he said. "But I don't think that the reason why I'm not hitting is because I'm pitching."
The question was, in essence, hypothetical. The team is not going to ask Ohtani to give up his two-way status, in either direction. The four-time MVP's track record suggests that he'll be making massive contributions from both the mound and batter's box this year.
"He's going to figure it out," Roberts said. "Is he going to go 50-50? No. But he is still going to be a very, very productive offensive player. We do know that."
Ohtani's second hit Wednesday showed a slightly different side of his swing. He stayed inside a cutter and shot it into shallow left-center field for an RBI single.
Again, it wasn't all that flashy. But it didn't have to be for Wednesday to qualify as a good day at the plate.