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The story
It has been revealed that Shohei Ohtani will start batting sixth for the first time in six years in NLCS Game 3 between the Dodgers and Brewers (October 14, Los Angeles). The team has struggled over its last two games, hitting just .169 with a 5.06 ERA, and attention is on whether dropping Ohtani from cleanup to sixth will help him snap out of his slump. On 5ch, opinions split over the reasoning behind the move — some read it as a managerial call to drop a struggling slugger down the order, others as a compromise forced by sponsorship obligations that require him to keep playing. Some posters also pointed to fatigue from his two-way workload piling up.
Sports Nippon
[ October 15, 2026, 05:39 ]
League Championship Series Game 3: Dodgers vs. Brewers (October 14, 2026, Los Angeles)
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Obviously it's not on terrestrial TV, right? Even the 50-50 postseason broadcast (the split-rights deal) only pulled 4% ratings.
Dunno, but it's lazy how these guys never bother writing the start time like it's nothing.
Game 1 was on terrestrial TV though, wasn't it? So it's not a given.
Probably something to do with sponsors. Roberts really doesn't look like he wants to play him.
He's overworked his body doing double duty. Obviously if you run a guy at twice everyone else's workload, his career shortens accordingly. That's exactly why pros normally make you specialize in one or the other even with two-way talent — this is on the idiots who hyped him up with "unicorn" talk and "only Ohtani can do this."
The whole "he trains so stoically" thing was a lie to begin with.
Oh, so Ohtani's just hitting team average then. Smith's batting under .100 and has a third of Ohtani's hit total. His game-calling behind the plate wasn't clicking with Yamamoto at all either.
Add "no fielding" to that list too.
He's still working about three times as much as Glasnow though.
Benching Ohtani isn't really on the table, when you think about it normally.
There's no normal reason to keep trotting out a "run-prevention machine," though.
They'll talk him into accepting pinch-hit duty and then just leave him pickled on the bench, obviously.
"It's AI's fault," "it's about popularity," "just google it" — thanks for burning the calories, I guess.
Rather than posting this frantically, you could've just searched it and saved yourself the calories…
While those guys are resting, somebody still has to do the work or the team doesn't even make the postseason, you know?
Well, the 7-9 hitters are right behind him anyway.
I'll go ahead and predict: a blown ABS challenge, a double-play ball, and a walk that ends in him getting thrown out on the bases.
Face it, "parasite-fanboy" Ohtani (dani-shin — a mocking term for obsessive stans) is finished.
Batting 9th actually matters — it's the bridge into the leadoff spot.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Game 3 was part of the NLCS (National League Championship Series), and the Dodgers went in carrying a rough patch — a .169 team batting average and 5.06 ERA over the previous two games. Ohtani dropping from cleanup to sixth was notable for being his first such move in six years, and the thread split between two competing theories: that the lineup change was meant to help him snap out of his slump, or that he was only kept in the lineup because of sponsorship obligations. There was also debate over whether the physical toll of his two-way workload was behind the drop in performance, but that remains thread speculation rather than any official team statement. Complaints about the lack of terrestrial broadcast coverage and NHK license fees also showed up in the same thread, but readers should note these aren’t specific to this particular game — they’re a recurring gripe aimed at MLB broadcasts of Ohtani’s games in general.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5channel (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani Starts Batting 6th for First Time in 6 Years in NLCS Game 3 — Can Dropping From Cleanup Spark a Turnaround?.”
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