shohei ohtani

HONOLULU — Lawyers for a Hawaii real estate investor and broker who sued Shohei Ohtani and his agent denied any improper use of the Dodgers star’s likeness for a development project and alleged the agent was trying to deflect blame for cost overruns at the player’s home.

Ohtani and Nez Balelo of CAA Baseball were sued Aug. 8 in Hawaii Circuit Court for the First Circuit by developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr., real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, West Point Investment Corp. and Hapuna Estates Property Owners. They accused Ohtani and Balelo of “abuse of power” that allegedly resulted in tortious interference and unjust enrichment impacting a $240 million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s coveted Hapuna Coast.

Hayes and Matsumoto had been dropped from the development deal by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the joint venture’s majority owner.

The amended complaint filed Tuesday added Creative Artists Agency and CAA Sports as defendants.

“Balelo and CAA sought to deflect blame by scapegoating Hayes for the cost overruns on Otani’s home — overruns caused entirely by defendants’ own decisions,” the complaint said.

“The allegations as we clarified them make very clear that there was never a breach of the endorsement agreement, the video that was posted on the website promoting specifically this project was sent to Balelo and CAA and another adviser to Ohtani, Mark Daulton, and they were aware of it and never objected to it,” said Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Hayes and the suing entities.

In a motion to dismiss filed Sept. 14, attorneys for Ohtani and Balelo said “plaintiffs exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development.”

“This is a desperate attempt to avoid dismissal of a frivolous complaint and, as we previously said, to distract from plaintiffs’ myriad of failures and their blatant misappropriation of Shohei Ohtani’s rights,” Laura Smolowe, a lawyer for Ohtani and Balelo, said in a statement. “Nez Balelo has always prioritized Mr. Ohtani’s best interests, including protecting his name, image, and likeness from unauthorized use.”

Lawyers for Hayes and the plaintiffs claimed they kept Balelo and CAA informed.

“Before the website went live, Hayes submitted a link to the entire site — including its promotional aspects — by email to Balelo and Terry Prince, the director of legal and business Affairs at CAA Sports LLC,” the amended complaint said. “It remained online with no material changes for 14 months before Balelo suddenly objected and threatened litigation — weaponizing the issue in order to create pretext for yet another set of demands and concessions.”

“The sudden demand that Kingsbarn terminate plaintiffs was instead a retaliatory measure against Hayes for resisting the constant and improper demands of Balelo and (Ohtani),” the complaint added. “Defendants further calculated that, with plaintiffs removed, they could more easily extract financial concessions from the project and enrich themselves at plaintiffs’ expense.”

The Dodgers are not here for conventional wisdom. The Dodgers are here to win the World Series.

So what if an unforeseen hurdle appeared in front of their October path? The Dodgers are on the verge of turning that hurdle into an unexpected but well-planned advantage on their quest to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

Conventional wisdom says the odds favor a team with a bye, because that team can set up its pitching rotation for the division series just the way it wants while its opponent burns through its best arms in the wild-card series. The Dodgers are one win away from storming through the wild-card series and setting up their pitching rotation for the division series just fine, thank you very much.

That, it turns out, is what you can do when your star-studded starting rotation is healthy and effective for the first time all season, at precisely the right time.

The Dodgers thoroughly outclassed the Cincinnati Reds, 10-5, in Tuesday’s opener of the best-of-three wild-card series. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, or if they win Thursday, they would advance to what would be the premier matchup in all the National League playoffs: the Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I think the biggest downside of playing in a wild-card series, obviously, if you’re able to advance, is what your pitching looks like after that,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “That’s the cost.

“And I think, with our depth, that’s really mitigated.”

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. If the Angels could go 6-0 against the Dodgers this season, the Reds could win the next two games.

However, the Reds used their best pitcher, Hunter Greene, in Game 1. The Dodgers have their best pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, ready to deploy in Game 2.

And, since the best-of-three wild card format was introduced in 2022, all 12 teams that have won Game 1 have gone on to win the series.

So let’s plan this out. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, Shohei Ohtani could start Game 1 of the division series Saturday. If the Reds force a decisive third game Thursday, Ohtani is the scheduled starter — and, if the Dodgers win, Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw all could be options for Game 1 of the division series.

Kershaw would be available for sure, as he is not on the wild-card roster and he would be pitching on regular rest.

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw would be available to pitch Game 1 of the NLDS if the Dodgers advance.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“To have Clayton Kershaw standing there ready, no matter how we deploy our pitching this week, gets at the cost (of playing in the wild-card round) not being as great,” Friedman said.

And the division series includes an off day after each of the first two games, which would enable the Dodgers to use Snell on five days’ rest for Game 2 and Yamamoto on six days’ rest for Game 3.

The Dodgers have so much flexibility, in fact, that manager Dave Roberts declined to say that Ohtani would start Game 1 of the division series if the Dodgers close out the wild-card series Wednesday.

“You’re getting ahead,” Roberts said, “but one of the first two games, probably.”

It is important that Snell held the Reds to two runs in Tuesday’s victory, but it is more important that he pitched seven innings. The Dodgers asked their relievers to cover two innings with an eight-run lead, and it took four of them to do it.

The Dodgers’ road to success is clear: more of the starters, less of the erratic relievers, and less need to lean on Glasnow and Sheehan in an unfamiliar role.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game — one, it means that we’re pitching good; but, two, you’re giving the bullpen a break and a breather, and they get to be 100% every time they come out,” Snell said.

“That makes for a different game that favors us.”

The Dodgers improvised their way to a title last October, with three starting pitchers and four bullpen games. That was not conventional wisdom, either.

This time of year, however, most postseason teams have three or four reliable starters. The Dodgers have six. If they have to play in an extra round, well, what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.

PHOENIX — Shohei Ohtani entered uncharted territory in his final pitching start of the regular season, shutting out the Arizona Diamondbacks over a season-high six innings in the Dodgers’ 5-4 walk-off loss Tuesday night.

The question now, with the start of the playoffs looming: When will the two-way star toe the rubber next?

After a season spent mostly in rehab mode as a pitcher, building his workload inning by inning as he slowly worked his way back from a second Tommy John surgery, Ohtani has checked every box in his recovery and looks primed for what will be his first career postseason pitching outing.

On Tuesday, his fastball was elite once again, topping out at 101.2 mph and accounting for five of his eight total strikeouts. The rest of his seven-pitch mix kept the wild-card-seeking Diamondbacks off balance, resulting in just five hits (all singles) and no walks.

Most of all, the right-hander was also efficient, needing only 91 throws to work past the fifth inning for the first time this year.

“Over the last three or four starts, there’s been a ramp-up of intensity and performance,” manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani, who has given up one run in 19 ⅓ innings over his last four outings to finish the regular season with a 2.87 ERA in 15 starts.

“I think that was his plan.”

Now, it’s up to the team to make a plan for its postseason pitching rotation and figure out exactly where Ohtani fits within it.

Roberts has virtually guaranteed that the reigning National League MVP will be used as a starter in next week’s best-of-three wild card round (which the Dodgers are all but assured of playing in, even if they sew up an NL West division title that has a magic number of three.

And as things currently stand, Ohtani would be lined up to go in Game 1, after the team moved his weekly pitching schedule this month to have him start on Tuesdays. Coincidentally or not, Game 1 of the wild-card round would be next Tuesday.

The reasons for opening that series with Ohtani on the mound are obvious — from his electric stuff, to his penchant for performing in big moments, to ensuring he does pitch in a series that could end in only two games.

However, Roberts insisted team officials “don’t know yet” how their postseason rotation will be ordered. Between the ever-present concerns about managing Ohtani’s two-way workload, and the team’s other wealth of starting options in what has been a resurgent rotation over the last month, there’s debate to be had about how to best maximize their $700-million superstar.

The Dodgers could, for instance, opt to start the wild-card series with Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Games 1 and 2, and save Ohtani for a potential Game 3. The benefit there: Ohtani could focus solely on his duties as designated hitter the first two games, and wouldn’t be required to play the day immediately after a pitching start (he is hitting only .138 in such games this season, and the Dodgers have made an effort to get him starts immediately before off days in recent months).

Because Ohtani isn’t as built-up as the team’s other starters, delaying his start could also ease the burden early in the series on a shaky bullpen, which coughed up a 4-0 lead Tuesday after rookies Jack Dreyer and Edgardo Henriquez combined to surrender three runs in the seventh, and closer Tanner Scott blew his 10th save in a two-run ninth punctuated by Geraldo Perdomo’s walk-off single.

“I think it just kind of gives us some options,” Roberts said of having Ohtani potentially lined up for a Game 1 start. “But the likelihood of him starting a playoff game in that first series is very high.”

Whenever Ohtani takes the mound again, the Dodgers are hopeful that concerns about his pitching stamina will be somewhat assuaged.

Up until this week, the team had a hard cap of five innings for whenever Ohtani took the mound. For the sake of his health, they were reluctant to waver from it, even when Ohtani had a no-hitter through five his last time out against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Prior to Tuesday’s series-opener at Chase Field, however, Roberts said that “if all goes well,” Ohtani would pitch into the sixth inning and that his leash could be further loosened in October after recent conversations between the player and club.

“I feel really good with the conversation I had with Shohei about how today could potentially play out,” Roberts said pregame. “This is me talking to the training staff, talking to Shohei, feeling like we’ve got a really good base now.”

Once the sixth arrived Tuesday night, Ohtani made Roberts’ decision easy. He had yielded just three hits to that point (one of them, a comebacker that got him in the palm of his glove in the third). The Dodgers had a comfortable early lead, after Teoscar Hernández homered in the second and belted a two-run, two-out triple in the top of the sixth (catcher Ben Rortvedt added a run with his first Dodgers homer in the seventh).

Five batters later, Ohtani’s night was done, the right-hander stranding a pair of sixth-inning singles by getting Gabriel Moreno to line out to center and retire the side.

The next time he takes the mound, it will be his first time pitching in a postseason setting. Whether it comes in Game 1, or later in the best-of-three wild card series, will now be up for the team to decide.

Bullpen reinforcements

The Dodgers have at least one bullpen reinforcement coming in this series, with rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki set to be activated on Wednesday in his long-awaited return from a shoulder injury.

However, the status of trade deadline acquisition Brock Stewart remains in question. Though Stewart completed a recent minor-league rehab stint, and was with the team in Arizona on Tuesday, Roberts said the club is still “making sure he feels good” after missing the last six weeks with a shoulder injury. It is unclear if he will be activated this week, as originally expected.

“[We’re] making sure he’s put in a position to feel good if he is activated,” Roberts said. “That’s no guarantee … We’ll know more tomorrow.”

Before Tuesday’s game, Stewart threw an extended flat-ground session in front of a team trainer and general manager Brandon Gomes. The three talked for several minutes once Stewart’s session was complete.

Shohei Ohtani said he is prepared to make a six-inning start in October. He said he is open to pitching out of the bullpen, even if remaining in the game after a relief appearance might require him to play in the outfield.

His unspoken reasons for wanting to do so are obvious: The Dodgers are terrible.

They aren’t terrible compared to the Colorado Rockies or Chicago White Sox, but they’re terrible for a team with the most expensive roster in baseball.

They’re terrible for a team with ambitions to repeat as World Series champions.

They’re terrible enough that Ohtani is sounding how he did when he played for the Angels.

Ironically, he signed with the Dodgers so that he wouldn’t have to be in this situation again. But here he is, sounding as if he thinks he has to do everything by himself.

The Dodgers have failed him.

Ohtani came up with the idea to defer the majority of his $700-million contract until after he retires, wanting the Dodgers to spend that money to build super teams around him. The Dodgers won a World Series last year, but the good times could already be over.

Instead of building another championship team, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman constructed an all-time clunker. Instead of creating a 120-win juggernaut on which Ohtani would be able to have his cake and eat it too, the Dodgers have placed him in a predicament in which he could have to decide between prioritizing either the upcoming postseason or his pitching future.

Winning the World Series again with Ohtani on rehabilitation mode will be extremely difficult for these Dodgers, if not downright impossible. Their 9-6 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday night explained why, their bullpen imploding once again to waste another did-that-really-happen performance by Ohtani. At this point, their bullpen might as well be renamed the Nine Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

With Ohtani still in his first season pitching after his second Tommy John surgery, the Dodgers have limited his starts to five innings. That was the plan again on Tuesday, and five no-hit innings by Ohtani wasn’t about to make manager Dave Roberts stray from an organizational directive.

Removing Ohtani was a health decision, not a baseball decision.

However, by sticking to the plan, Roberts was forced to reenact his nightly routine of juggling sticks of dynamite. This time the explosion was immediate, as Justin Wrobleski gave up five runs to turn a 4-0 lead into a 5-4 deficit.

Roberts was loudly booed when he walked to the mound to replace Wrobleski, but how could anyone blame the manager for deploying the hard-throwing left-hander, who was one of the team’s most dependable relievers? It’s not as if the next pitcher shut down the Phillies. Edgardo Henriquez also gave up a homer.

Ohtani’s 50th homer of the season sparked an eighth-inning, two-run rally for the Dodgers that leveled the score, 6-6. The comeback made what happened later all the more deflating. Blake Treinen allowed three runs, and the game was over.

To recap: Ohtani pitched five no-hit innings and blasted a dramatic eighth-inning homer, and the Dodgers still lost.

As much as he provided, it wasn’t enough, which is why he was asked after the game about what more he could do.

Ohtani will pitch as a starter in the postseason but when asked if he could also be deployed as a reliever to help the flailing bullpen, he replied, “I’ve had different conversations with different people, and of course that’s come up.”

That’s when Ohtani presented a novel idea about how the Dodgers could use him.

“As a player, if I’m told to go somewhere, I want to be prepared to do so,” he said. “That’s on the mound and perhaps even in the outfield.”

The outfield?

Under baseball’s current rules, if Ohtani starts a game as a pitcher and is replaced on the mound, he could continue playing as a designated hitter. However, if he starts the game as a DH and pitches out of the bullpen, the Dodgers would lose the DH once his relief appearance is over.

Playing in the outfield would allow the Dodgers to use Ohtani as a reliever and keep his bat in their lineup after.

Told of what Ohtani said, Roberts replied, “He’s a great teammate. He wants to help us win a championship. So I’m all about it.”

Roberts looked delighted.

Of course he did. Any inning pitched by Ohtani is an inning not pitched by one of the Dodgers’ relievers. Any at-bat taken by Ohtani is an at-bat not taken by one of the team’s inconsistent hitters.

Ohtani and the Dodgers will soon have to make a major decision.

The organization can’t remain cautious with Ohtani and make a legitimate effort to retain their crown. They’re not good enough to do both. They will have to choose one or the other.

It was a stressful decision. But it shouldn’t have been so consequential.

In the middle of the fifth inning Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani returned to the Dodgers’ dugout after a clean inning of work on the mound. Waiting for him at the top step was manager Dave Roberts, who (according to the SportsNet LA television broadcast) wanted to ask how he was feeling.

With any other pitcher, there would have been no such discussion.

Over his five innings against the Philadelphia Phillies, Ohtani had not given up a hit. He had thrown only 68 pitches. And he was flashing the kind of dominance that would have made a no-hitter feel like a real possibility.

Ohtani, however, is not like any other pitcher.

He is a two-way star, coming off a second career Tommy John surgery, who has been managed with kid gloves and Bubble Wrap in his return to pitching duties this year. He started his comeback by pitching one inning, then two, then so on until he built up to five. Weeks ago, the team — in consultation with the reigning MVP — decided to avoid pushing him past the five-inning mark until at least October.

His health, both on the bump and at the plate, remains the priority.

Thus, while Ohtani reportedly told Roberts he still felt good, he laughed and said it was up to the veteran manager to decide whether or not to extend his pitching outing.

Roberts, in a continuation of the team’s careful handling of Ohtani this year, decided against it.

The result, in a continuation of the struggles from the team’s beleaguered bullpen, was disastrous.

After pulling Ohtani with a four-run lead, the Dodgers watched their relief corps melt down in predictable, reminiscent fashion. Justin Wrobleski gave up five consecutive hits with one out in the sixth, including a three-run home run to Brandon Marsh that broke open the inning. Edgardo Henriquez made matters worse, replacing Wrobleski — amid a chorus of boos directed at Roberts — later in the inning only to give up another long ball to Max Kepler.

By the time it was over, the Phillies had scored six runs to take the lead. And though the Dodgers would battle back to tie the score in the eighth, the bullpen faltered again in the ninth, when Blake Treinen gave up a decisive three-run, two-out home run to Rafael Marchán in the Phillies’ eventual 9-6 win.

For the five innings Tuesday, Ohtani displayed utter dominance against the only team to have already clinched a division title.

His fastball was playing up, eclipsing 100 mph seven times and topping out at 101.7 mph. His secondary stuff was electric, a mix of sliders and sweepers and curveballs and splitters that kept the Phillies off balance and able to make only benign contact.

After a two-out walk to Bryce Harper in the first inning, Ohtani retired the final 13 he faced. He got only six total whiffs, but was more pitch-efficient because of it, with his 68 throws coming in 19 shy of his previous season-high (he threw 87 pitches in his only other full five-inning start on Aug. 27).

That’s why, once Ohtani raced back toward the dugout to transition from pitcher to hitter in the middle of the fifth, his removal wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Why, after Roberts conversed with Ohtani from the top step, he found first baseman Freddie Freeman laughing at him back on the bench, sensing the stressfulness of his manager’s decision (which represented the ninth time in Roberts’ Dodgers tenure he had pulled a pitcher from a no-hitter in the fifth inning or later).

By that point, of course, the game shouldn’t have been in danger either way.

The Dodgers had scored three runs in the second inning on home runs from Alex Call and Kiké Hernández. They added another in the fourth off Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez, handing the Cy Young contender just his fourth start this season of more than three earned runs.

But then, a bullpen that had been burned repeatedly in recent weeks (including in a 10-inning loss in the opening game of this series Monday night) played with fire again.

Wrobleski, a rookie left-hander who had been one of the Dodgers’ better relievers of late, had Rafael Marchán break up the no-no with a one-out single, Harrison Bader and Kyle Schwarber to load the bases with two more hits after that, Harper to gap a double that brought two runs across, and Marsh to go deep on a hanging 0-2 slider for a go-ahead three-run shot.

Henriquez, another rookie who had been sharp in limited action this year, yielded another home run to Kepler two batters later.

Just like that, it was 6-4 Phillies.

Ohtani helped the Dodgers get back in the game with his bat. In the eighth, he clobbered a leadoff home run deep to right field for his 50th long ball of the season, making him just the sixth player in MLB history with consecutive 50-homer campaigns.

The Dodgers kept the rally going after that, loading the bases for Call to hit a tying sacrifice fly.

Alas, the Dodgers’ bullpen did what it does best once more in the ninth, coming unglued at the worst possible moment.

After getting two quick outs to start the inning, Treinen gave up a double to Weston Wilson (the No. 7 hitter who entered with a .202 average). He fell behind 3-and-0 to Bryson Stott (the No. 8 hitter) to trigger an intentional walk. Then, in a 3-and-1 count to Marchán (the No. 9 hitter and backup catcher for the Phillies), he served up an inside cutter that Marchán pulled down the line, getting just enough behind it to send it bouncing off the top of the short right-field wall.

Nine painful runs, in four miserable innings of Dodgers relief.

Another loss, that wasted Ohtani’s no-hit (but short-lived) masterpiece.

The Dodgers are planning to use Shohei Ohtani as a starting pitcher in the playoffs, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman confirmed Monday.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t certain scenarios in which he could also come out of the bullpen, as well.

“Things play out in October that you can’t foresee,” Friedman said before Monday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies — shortly after, coincidentally, catching up with new Phillies signing and ex-Dodgers favorite Walker Buehler, who made three starts in the Dodgers’ rotation last postseason before emerging for a title-clinching save in Game 5 of the Fall Classic.

“Walker Buehler was a starting pitcher for us last year, and finished out Game 5 of the World Series,” Friedman noted. “So you never know how things are going to play out.”

The possibility of Ohtani pitching in relief has been percolating for the last several weeks. Pitching coach Mark Prior said he could “absolutely” envision it during an appearance on the “Dan Patrick Show” last month. Manager Dave Roberts has more recently reiterated that the conversation regarding Ohtani’s postseason pitching role remains open as the regular season winds down.

“Could it change down the road in the postseason? Possibly,” Roberts said Sunday when pressed on the topic again. “But right now we see him as a starter.”

Friedman largely echoed that sentiment Monday, a day before Ohtani was set for his next scheduled start in a pivotal series against the Phillies (who entered this week’s visit to Dodger Stadium 4 ½ games ahead of the Dodgers for the No. 2 seed in the National League standings, and the first-round bye that comes with it).

Friedman praised Ohtani, who has returned from a second-career Tommy John surgery this year with a 3.75 ERA and 49 strikeouts over 36 innings, as “one of the best starters in the National League.”

Shohei Ohtani delivers against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards on Sept. 5.

(Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)

He said the team’s expectation is that the right-hander “will impact us as a starting pitcher” in the playoffs — even though Ohtani might not pitch much past the fifth inning of games (the limit he has been held to in his recent regular season starts) and won’t be asked to make consecutive starts on normal four days of rest (he has gotten at least five days off between each of his outings this year).

“No one is taking on more than [he is with the] pitching and also hitting and running the bases,” Friedman said. “So just trying to be cognizant of that.”

However, pitching out of the bullpen in some specific, late-game situations could remain on the table.

Like Buehler last year, and Clayton Kershaw in many Octobers before that, a long postseason run would likely offer opportunities for the Dodgers to use Ohtani as a reliever in the days between his starts — perhaps in potential close-out games or on nights when the back end of the team’s struggling bullpen is low on other trustworthy options.

Ohtani does have memorable personal experience in such a role, having recorded the final outs of Team Japan’s victory in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

When looking ahead to this postseason, Friedman did not close the door on that possibility either; even though he said his focus has remained on navigating the final two weeks of the regular season first.

“We’re expecting him to be a starter for us,” Friedman said, “and depending on everything else, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

Of course, Ohtani’s two-way status would add extra complications to any potential bullpen plans.

There are logistical questions — like how he would warm up if his spot in the batting order comes up the inning before he’s supposed to take the mound.

And then there is a technical dilemma — with MLB’s two-way rules having been written in a way that, if Ohtani were to enter the game as a reliever, the Dodgers would lose him as a designated hitter once he exits the mound.

“Once you fire him … and you decide to come out of it, you have to take that cost of losing the DH and losing him as a hitter,” Roberts said. “You got to be willing to take the chance.”

That reality might restrict Ohtani to pitching only out of the bullpen in the ninth inning of games, and could make the Dodgers more hesitant to use Ohtani in relief at all for fear of what would happen if a game extended past the end of his outing.

Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani remains a key bat for the team, adding weight to any decision to use him as a reliever.

(Eric Thayer/Eric Thayer For The Los Angeles Times)

“I think they missed the mark with it,” Friedman said when asked if he was frustrated by the language of the two-way rule; which was enacted by MLB several years ago in response to Ohtani’s emergence as a two-way star, but only allows him to remain in the game as a hitter after he exits pitching starts, specifically.

“I think the rule was put in place to try to encourage people to do it, to incentivize people,” Friedman said. “So yeah, I think they missed.”

Friedman noted he’d liked to see the rule eventually changed to also include relief appearances, but acknowledged “that’s more of an offseason, future thing.”

“Obviously,” he added, “it’s not reasonable for us to ask for that in-season.”

Thus, for now, the Dodgers will continue to weigh the complex pros and cons of how to use Ohtani’s arm once they reach October.

His current weekly pitching schedule has Ohtani lined up to throw in Game 1 of a potential wild card series, which will begin exactly two weeks from his Tuesday night start against the Phillies (though Friedman insisted that wasn’t intentional).

Whether his services are needed, even in narrowly conceivable circumstances, out of the bullpen beyond that remains to be seen — with the Dodgers continuing to leave that possibility open for now.

“I think so much of it is, when does he start? What’s that time off in-between? How lined up are our other starters?” Friedman said.

“Until we know that, it’s hard to get too much into it.”

HONOLULU — Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and his agent, Nez Balelo, moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed last month accusing them of causing a Hawaii real estate investor and broker to be fired from a $240-million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s Hapuna Coast.

Ohtani and Balelo were sued Aug. 8 in Hawaii Circuit Court for the First Circuit by developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, West Point Investment Corp. and Hapuna Estates Property Owners, who accused them of “abuse of power” that allegedly resulted in tortious interference and unjust enrichment.

Hayes and Matsumoto had been dropped from the development deal by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the joint venture’s majority owner.

In papers filed Sunday, lawyers for Ohtani and Balelo said Hayes and Matsumoto in 2023 acquired rights for a joint venture in which they owned a minority percentage to use Ohtani’s name, image and likeness under an endorsement agreement to market the venture’s real estate development at the Mauna Kea Resort. The lawyers said Ohtani was a “victim of NIL violations.”

“Unbeknownst to Ohtani and his agent Nez Balelo, plaintiffs exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development,” the lawyers wrote. “They engaged in this self-dealing without authorization, and without paying Ohtani for that use, in a selfish and wrongful effort to take advantage of their proximity to the most famous baseball player in the world.”

The lawyers claimed Hayes and Matsumoto sued after “Balelo did his job and protected his client by expressing justifiable concern about this misuse and threatening to take legal action against this clear misappropriation.” They called Balelo’s actions “clearly protected speech “

In a statement issued after the suit was filed last month, Kingsbarn called the allegations “completely frivolous and without merit.”

Ohtani is a three-time MVP on the defending World Series champion Dodgers.

“Nez Balelo has always prioritized Shohei Ohtani’s best interests, including protecting his name, image, and likeness from unauthorized use,” a lawyer for Ohtani and Balelo, said in a statement. “This frivolous lawsuit is a desperate attempt by plaintiffs to distract from their myriad of failures and blatant misappropriation of Mr. Ohtani’s rights.”

Lawyers for Hayes and Matsumoto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BALTIMORE — The Dodgers’ pitching plans were thrown into flux again Friday.

The team’s scheduled starter for their series opener against the Baltimore Orioles, Tyler Glasnow, was scratched with what manager Dave Roberts said was back tightness. And in his stead, Shohei Ohtani was tapped to fill in on short notice, offering to take the ball two days after having his own scheduled pitching start on Wednesday scratched because of an illness.

“Shohei was up to it, feels good physically,” Roberts said. “Wants the ball tonight.”

According to Roberts, the team is hopeful Glasnow’s issue is not serious. They are targeting to have him pitch again early next week.

“We just didn’t want to put him in harm’s way,” Roberts said. “It’s not something where we got to the point where he’s hurt or anything like that. It’s back stiffness. So we feel that to not take this start will allow him to be able to start hopefully early next week.”

In the meantime, Ohtani will be on the mound Friday for the first time since Aug. 27, when he completed his first five-inning start of the season in his continued progression back from Tommy John surgery.

Roberts said Ohtani’s start Friday “could be a little shorter,” given the short-notice nature of how it came together.

But he was also hopeful that Ohtani’s willingness to take the mound now — as opposed to Monday, when he had been next scheduled to pitch — could provide the team a much-needed jolt, as they try to bounce back from a sweep against the Pirates in Pittsburgh earlier this week.

“For a guy who is a starter that’s got a routine, that was going to pitch a couple days later, to then change course speaks a lot to what this team needs,” Roberts said. “So I expect our guys to respond to that.”

PITTSBURGH — It was a pivotal moment, in a pivotal game, in what’s become a pivotal week for the Dodgers in the National League West standings.

Which, rather predictably given their recently floundering form, meant they found a new way to mess it all up.

In the top of the second inning on Wednesday night at PNC Park, the Dodgers appeared to be in optimal position.

Earlier in the day, the second-place San Diego Padres had been swept by the woebegone Baltimore Orioles, opening the door for the Dodgers to extend their 2½-game lead in the division. And despite trailing by a run in their own showdown against a last-place team, the Dodgers had the Pittsburgh Pirates on the ropes, loading the bases with no outs for a chance to take the lead.

The task, at that point, was simple.

Get the ball in play. Manufacture some early scoring. And, at the very least, set a positive tone for a night in which the NL West lead could grow.

“That’s a situation where you get shorter with your swing, use the big part of the field and you’ve got to drive in a run,” manager Dave Roberts said.

That approach, however, never materialized.

Over the rest of an inexplicable 3-0 loss to the Pirates, what happened next would instead loom large.

First, second-year outfielder Andy Pages came up, worked another full count against Pittsburgh starter Braxton Ashcraft … then went down swinging chasing a slider that would’ve been ball four.

Next, rookie infielder Alex Freeland again ran the count full, got an elevated slider up in the zone to hit … but kept the bat on his shoulder as the umpire rung him up for a called third strike.

A Kiké Hernández flyout would ultimately end the inning. But it was the first two at-bats that had Roberts fuming afterward.

“You never want to say that one inning kind of win or loses a game,” Roberts said. “But the second inning, bases loaded, nobody out — I just felt that we had two bad at-bats and didn’t come away with anything.”

“That flipped the game,” Roberts later added. “It flipped the momentum.”

Indeed, on a night the Dodgers (78-61) failed to score any of their 11 baserunners or record a hit in seven at-bats with men in scoring position, no sequence was more frustrating than their second-inning fizzle.

It was the latest epitome of the team failing to produce in a clutch situation. Another example of their roster flunking some basic fundamentals.

“We’ve got to collectively get all of us on board understanding the magnitude of each at-bat, each situation,” Roberts bemoaned from his office postgame. “I sound repetitive [about how] it’s got to get better. But I do believe that having the right approach, the right mindset, the right urgency in a particular at-bat lends itself to better results.”

This has been a recurring theme for the Dodgers during the second half of the season; the kind of fine-margin miscues that have haunted them during a perplexing 22-29 stretch since July 4.

Sometimes, it’s their big-name superstars that falter. In other cases, it’s younger contributors like Pages and Freeland who fail to execute when required.

The only constant: Every time the Dodgers seem to be turning a corner, they find another way to trip themselves up.

“I do believe that the guys that we have in the room are capable of putting together consistent team at-bats of urgency from the first pitch on,” Roberts said. “But at the end of the day — and I’m sure our players are echoing the same message — we just got to get it done.”

This week’s series at PNC Park (the fourth straight the Dodgers have dropped here over the last four years) has exemplified the club’s maddening current rut in other ways.

One night, they explode at the plate for seven runs … only for their pitching staff to give up nine as it did in Tuesday’s loss.

The next, they piece together a decent pitching effort (even after Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his scheduled start because of an illness) … only for the offense to squander every single opportunity they had to take control of the contest (and lose catcher Will Smith along the way to a bruised hand he suffered on an errant foul ball, though postgame X-rays came back negative).

“We haven’t really put it together at all for a while now,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “We need to start playing better.”

On Wednesday, the Pirates jumped in front in the first inning, when Bryan Reynolds homered in the 12th pitch of his at-bat off spot starter Emmet Sheehan. Andrew McCutchen doubled the lead in the second, adding to the sting of the Dodgers’ squandered bases-loaded opportunity with a line-drive home run in the game’s very next at-bat.

After that, “we just really couldn’t put anything else together,” Roberts said.

Or, more precisely, they failed to finish any other chances off.

The Dodgers loaded the bases again with two out in the third, before Alex Call hit a dribbler up the first-base line to retire the side.

The team had two runners aboard again in the fifth and seventh, but continued to come up empty each and every time.

“We had guys on, we just didn’t get the hit,” said Freeman, who rolled into a fifth-inning double-play to extinguish that threat. “Frustrating night.”

The only saving grace right now is that the Padres (who have lost four in a row while dealing with a string of deflating injuries) haven’t made up ground against them.

“I’m very much aware of that,” Roberts said. “But they’re feeling the same thing we are. We’ve got to control what we can control. And we’re certainly not.”

A different approach in Wednesday’s second inning might have changed all that. Instead, it served as another regrettable failure, turning a potentially pivotal chance to stretch the division lead into one of the season’s most dispiriting losses.

Smith update

Smith exited Wednesday’s game after the second inning, when a foul tip bounced off the dirt and hit his right throwing hand as it was hanging behind his right thigh.

Because Smith’s X-rays came back negative, Roberts said the club was hopeful he could avoid the injured list. However, given the swelling and soreness he was feeling postgame, the team was still planning to call up a third catcher on Thursday for more roster insurance.

PITTSBURGH — The Dodgers have had an illness running through their clubhouse lately.

And on Wednesday, it forced an alteration in their pitching plans.

While Shohei Ohtani was in the Dodgers’ lineup as designated hitter for their game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the two-way star was scratched from his scheduled pitching start at PNC Park after feeling “under the weather” the past few days, according to manager Dave Roberts.

“When you’re sick and potentially dehydrated, the tax of pitching in a game wasn’t worth it,” Roberts said.

Instead, Emmet Sheehan will take the mound for Wednesday’s game, while Ohtani’s next pitching appearance will be pushed to “sometime this weekend” against the Baltimore Orioles.

“Just to give him a few more days to recover,” Roberts said.

Ohtani’s sickness certainly didn’t seem to hamper him at the plate Tuesday, when he had two doubles and a career-high 120 mph exit velocity on a solo home run –– his 46th of the season and 100th as a Dodger.

However, Roberts said Ohtani’s pregame catch play on Tuesday was cut short, and that the risk of overexerting the reigning National League MVP by having him make a full-length start Wednesday wasn’t worth it.

“The toll of taking four or five at-bats versus pitching five innings, there’s no comparison,” Roberts said.

Ohtani’s symptoms have included chest and sinus “stuff” as well as “a deep cough,” Roberts added.

Several other Dodgers players have dealt with similar issues recently. Max Muncy was so sick last week, the team sent him home to rest and delayed the start of his minor-league rehab assignment to this week.

“We’re trying to manage it,” Roberts said. “But there are guys that are just not feeling great right now.”

In the waning days of the 1960s, when Don Sutton was starting his Hall of Fame career and Don Drysdale was finishing his, kids all over the Southland could turn on Channel 9 and catch a block of cartoons. “Speed Racer” came on first, followed by “Ultraman”.

In the lore: “A 130-foot tall red and silver giant of light, Ultraman came to Earth from another galaxy to protect humanity from invading aliens and giant monsters.”

Fortunately, the meet-and-greet version of Ultraman that showed up at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday was about 6 feet tall. I dropped by to say hello, although I had been warned he did not converse with humans.

“He’ll look at you quizzically, but also with endearment, knowing you are a little carbon-based unit that would like to become his friend,” said David Kornblum, president of Tsuburaya Fields Media and Pictures Entertainment.

Ultraman turns 60 next year. Kornblum is based in Los Angeles, and his job is to take what his Tokyo-based company calls “Japan’s most beloved superhero” and revive his popularity in the United States. This fall, you’ll be able to stream new and classic episodes of Ultraman.

It’s not just that Shohei Ohtani is more popular than Ultraman in Japan these days. If you’re a Japanese company wanting to get the word out in America about your product, you’re in good company at Dodger Stadium.

“With the Dodgers, you’ve got a 50,000-seat stadium basically sold out for 80 games a year,” Kornblum said. “It’s a natural in terms of having exposure for this character in this market, the second-largest market in the country.

“You have the opportunity to showcase your character with the most popular team.”

The “Shohei economy,” as one team official dubbed it last year, has taken on a new dimension.

Japanese fans flock to Dodger Stadium, of course, taking stadium tours conducted in Japanese, enjoying a variety of national delicacies at concession stands and clutching shopping bags packed with hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of dollars’ worth of Ohtani merchandise.

And, of the 24 corporations with advertising space between the foul poles at Dodger Stadium as of Tuesday, eight are based in Asia.

What’s new: With Ohtani as a global attraction, Japanese entertainment companies have used Dodger Stadium as a platform to popularize their star attractions.

“There is not a business sector that hasn’t weighed in with us,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said, noting the Dodgers’ league-leading attendance and global viewership. “We are an entertainment venue. We’re a place to go to get attention.

“If you’re a brand looking for attention, where else would you go?”

With each deal, Ohtani’s contract becomes even more magical for the Dodgers. Never mind, for the moment, the sponsorships with Asian airlines, retailers, beverage companies, and so on.

With four Japanese character appearances at Dodger Stadium this season, the Dodgers have made more than the $2 million they pay Ohtani in salary this year. (The other $68 million is deferred.)

And, as the entertainment companies reach customers in the United States, the Dodgers reach fans in Japan, where they have leveraged Ohtani to become the dominant major league team.

The Dodgers launched a fan club there this year. Kasten said they hope to expand their marketing presence there as Major League Baseball considers relaxing rules under which the league itself — rather than individual teams — typically controls international business ventures.

“FC Barcelona told me they have 300 million fans around the world,” Kasten said. “That’s a good role model.”

When Tokyo’s Cover Corp. opened a Los Angeles office last year, they brought their star animated character — Gawr Gura — to Dodger Stadium.

“The fact that we could say we had a collaboration with the Dodgers, that is helpful to show we are that level of a brand,” said Motoaki Tanigo, the chief executive of Cover. “That was helpful to us, to introduce ourselves.”

The Dodgers sold 8,000 tickets as part of the Cover promotion, the company said and the team confirmed, with 80% of those fans visiting Dodger Stadium for the first time, and with many showing up super early to snap up commemorative merchandise. Cover staged a larger ballpark promotion this year.

Ultraman takes down Alien Baltan before before the ceremonial first pitch on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Ultraman brought no merchandise with him, but he did bring an evil nemesis, who tried to steal the show during the ceremonial first pitch. If the point was to identify the evil nemesis called a kaiju for an unfamiliar audience, I suggested the company dress him in a Padres uniform.

“Or in a Giants uniform,” Kornblum said. “I would love if they would allow us to have a full smackdown, with a kaiju in a Giants jersey vs. Ultraman in a Dodgers jersey.

“A beatdown at home plate would be fun. But the corporate guys won’t let me do that.”

SAN DIEGO — When he was finished rounding the bases at Petco Park on Sunday, Shohei Ohtani made a detour on his return to the Dodgers’ bench.

Seated by the visiting dugout was a fan in a San Diego Padres cap and brown Fernando Tatis Jr. jersey. The spectator had spent most of the afternoon reminding Ohtani of how much he’d stunk in the three-game series.

Ohtani initiated a high-five with his tormentor, who playfully bowed in deference.

Manager Dave Roberts howled with delight. Teoscar Hernández showered Ohtani with sunflower seeds.

These were like scenes from the good old days, the Dodgers hitting bombs and laughing as they celebrated.

But was this a mirage?

Even after avoiding a sweep by the Padres with an 8-2 victory, even after moving back into a tie with them for the lead in the National League West, the Dodgers continued to be an enigma.

Who were they? The team that trampled the Padres in the series finale? Or the team that rolled over in the two previous games of the series?

“They’re gettable,” said a scout from a rival NL team who was in attendance.

The kind of game the Dodgers played on Sunday, however, prompted the same scout to attach this qualifier: They can’t be counted out.

One of baseball’s worst offensive teams over the last two months, the Dodgers blasted four home runs, including two by Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers claimed the lead on a three-run blast in the seventh inning by Dalton Rushing.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto did his part on the mound, picking up his 11th win by limiting the Padres to two runs over six innings.

The Dodgers have 31 games remaining in the regular season and they expect a number of their injured players to return over that period. The form they take will dramatically affect their chances in October.

Freddie Freeman, right, celebrates with Mookie Betts after hitting a two-run home run in the seventh inning against the Padres on Sunday.

(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)

Winning their division could position them to secure a top-two seed in the NL, which would grant them a first-round bye. Failing to do so would subject them to a dangerous best-of-three wild-card series.

Because of the alarming number of injuries they have sustained this season, the Dodgers have already cycled through a variety of identities, from a team without starting pitching to a team without a reliable bullpen to, most recently, a team without a consistent offense.

In their previous two games, the Dodgers scored a combined two runs, leading Roberts and some players to question the team’s collective approach at the plate.

Just a week earlier, the division race looked as if it could be over. The Padres entered a three-game series at Dodger Stadium as the hottest team this side of Milwaukee. The Padres had bolstered their lineup, rotation and top-ranked bullpen at the trade deadline while the Dodgers did almost nothing.

The Dodgers still swept them.

But their inconsistency on offense kept them from protecting the two-game lead they’d built. They inexplicably dropped two of four games against the last-place Colorado Rockies. By Saturday, after their second loss to the Padres in as many days, they were in second place.

Just as the Dodgers looked as if they could be written off, just as they looked as if they could relinquish control of the division to the Padres, they responded with a performance worthy of their $320-million payroll.

“Today was a game we couldn’t drop no matter what,” Yamamoto said in Japanese, “so I went into the game with more focus than usual.”

The hitters also went into the game with a heightened focus, resulting in more extended at-bats that gradually wore down the Padres’ pitchers. The Dodgers scored seven of their runs in the last four innings.

The Dodgers don’t play the Padres again this season but Freeman said his team should be more concerned about their improvement rather than what its division rivals do.

Asked when he would start to scoreboard watch, Freeman replied, “Maybe in mid-September.”

Reminded only 31 games remain in the regular season, Freeman replied, “It is a sprint. I’ll be honest with you there. It’s a sprint now. You can’t worry about other teams if, like the last couple games, we don’t fix our offense, how our at-bats were going the last couple days. We fixed it today, we did better today. If you’re worrying about other things, that’s just not conducive, it’s not going to lead to quality things in the clubhouse. So maybe mid-September. When I turn 36, we’ll start scoreboard watching, all right?”

Freeman’s birthday is on Sept. 12. Will the Dodgers know who they are by then?

SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers finally landed a lot of little jabs as an offense Sunday against the San Diego Padres.

And in a pivotal, sweep-evading 8-2 win at Petco Park — which once again tied the two teams for first place in the National League West standings — it allowed their slumping lineup to deliver some badly needed knockout blows.

For the first time this weekend, the Dodgers looked like themselves at the plate.

They bashed four home runs, none bigger than a tie-breaking three-run shot from backup catcher Dalton Rushing in the seventh that ultimately decided the game.

They strung together seven hits and four walks, cracking a Padres pitching staff that had smothered them over the first two games in this rivalry’s final renewal of the season.

Most importantly, however, they did all the little things that have too often gone missing during their recent two-month funk; one in which they’ve ranked 24th in the majors in scoring since the start of July, and let what was once a nine-game lead in the division turn into a dogfight down the stretch.

They extended at-bats. Battled with two strikes. And, at long last, earned the kind of pitches their star-studded roster could wallop.

“For us to come out here and execute as an offense, way better than we did the last couple days, that’s a big boost for us,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, who had two home runs to help the Dodgers salvage the series finale.

“When you expand the zone, the slugging percentage is going to go down, because pitchers are going to continue to expand,” manager Dave Roberts added. “But when you earn good counts and get good pitches, control the zone, then slug happens. You can’t always chase it. Which, I thought, today we did a really good job of.

Ahead of first pitch, Roberts spoke at length about the team’s recent offensive struggles — following up on his Saturday night critique of the club’s increasingly all-or-nothing approach.

“We haven’t really been in-sync,” Roberts said. “It’s been disjointed a lot, as far as the offense.”

Freddie Freeman, right, is congratulated by third base coach Dino Ebel after hitting a home run in the sixth inning Sunday.

(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)

When asked if that meant his team needed to adopt more of a small-ball mentality, however, Roberts pushed back.

“I think it’s a fair question,” he said. “But I couldn’t disagree more.”

After all, his team is still stocked full of All-Stars, MVPs and future Hall of Famers. At their core, they are built to bludgeon opponents — not slap singles and drop down sacrifice bunts.

“Slugging is still a part of it,” he said. “I definitely don’t want guys to hit like I did.”

Around the margins, though, there were ways Roberts felt the Dodgers (74-57) could better position themselves to do that. Like trying to work better counts, stay alive with two strikes, and striking a better balance between patience and aggression.

“I want my cake, and [to] eat it as well,” he quipped, a devilish smile on his face.

“I’d be shocked,” he added, “if we don’t see a different offensive output from here forward, starting today.”

The change started in the first inning, with the Dodgers putting Padres starter Nick Pivetta under immediate stress.

Shohei Ohtani drew a five-pitch leadoff walk. Mookie Betts shortened up his swing on an 0-and-2 slider to line a single up the middle. Freeman loaded the bases by grinding out a full-count free pass.

It was a string of small victories, that provided cleanup hitter Teoscar Hernández the perfect chance to slug.

Hernández tried to, getting a fastball over the plate in a 3-and-1 count and launching a deep fly ball that seemed destined to be a grand slam. The drive, however, hung up just enough for Ramón Laureano to rob it at the wall.

The sacrifice fly brought in the Dodgers’ only run of the inning — giving them a 1-0 lead that would soon be erased on Elias Díaz’s two-run homer in the third off Yoshinobu Yamamoto (the only runs he allowed in a six-inning start).

Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Padres in the first inning Sunday.

(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Still, it set the tone for a flurry of offense that would follow, when a weekend of non-existent offense finally started to turn.

“Getting the guys on and scoring in that first inning was huge,” Freeman sad. “Even though we could have got more out of it, just getting one run across was a good boost for us coming off the last couple games.”

In the sixth, Freeman hit his first home run of the day, crushing another center-cut fastball from Pivetta to right-center for a tying blast.

Then, against Padres reliever Jeremiah Estrada in the seventh, the club put all the pieces together in a five-run rally.

Andy Pages rolled a single through the left side to lead off. Michael Conforto came up next, fouled off a full-count slider, then took a borderline fastball at the top of the zone for a stress-inducing walk.

Miguel Rojas couldn’t get a bunt down after that, eventually swinging away for a fly out to center.

But, in what was easily his best moment of a trying rookie season, Rushing connected on the fatal blow seven pitches later — resetting after a bad first strike call, fouling off his own two-strike slider to keep the at-bat alive, then clobbering another slider to right for his go-ahead three-run homer.

“When I’m in the box and I get put in a hole, it’s almost like, ‘All right, I’m going to find my way out,’” said Rushing, who entered the day batting just .184 with two home runs. “I kind of played the game with him. He threw every pitch that he had, and I was totally banking on just being able to put a good swing on the ball whatever he threw.”

“I think today,” Roberts added, “was a big step in the right direction for him.”

The same, of course, was true of the Dodgers’ entire offense — which also got a second homer from Freeman later in the seventh, then another when Ohtani belted his 45th homer of the season in the ninth.

They got back to doing the little things right. They reeled off one big swing after another as a result.

“Today was more indicative of what we’re going to do, we expect, going forward,” Roberts said. “The fight, the grind, taking what the pitcher is giving you — and then if there’s slug there, it’s there. Just the byproduct of good at-bats all day.”

In the standings, all is right again in the Dodgers’ world. Clayton Kershaw was, well, Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers won.

In the box score, all was not well. As you already have guessed, the bullpen: Five relievers were needed to cover the final three innings, in which the San Diego Padres put potential tying and/or go-ahead runs on base in each of those innings.

And, on Day 1 of Life Without Muncy 2.0, the Dodgers managed four hits.

With 40 games to play, the Dodgers and Padres are tied atop the National League West. If Max Muncy can play in even a handful of those games, the Dodgers will be grateful.

The Dodgers put their third baseman on the injured list Friday afternoon because of a strained oblique muscle. When Muncy went on the injured list last month because of a knee injury, the Dodgers led the majors in runs. He missed 25 games, in which the Dodgers ranked last in runs.

Of the Dodgers’ four hits on Friday evening, three were delivered by the bottom three batters in the lineup. That means Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages went a combined 1 for 17.

“Max just has that balance in the lineup, as far as another left-handed (hitter),” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “but also handles left-handed pitching and has the ability to get on base.

“He’s a threat. Now, without him, other guys have got to step up.”

The Dodgers’ left-handed bats, as of Friday: Ohtani, Freeman, outfielder Michael Conforto (.189) and backup catcher Dalton Rushing (.202).

It should go without saying that Ohtani and Freeman remain imposing. It should also go without saying that opponents might well line up right-handers against the Dodgers, including the Padres throwing Dylan Cease against them Saturday and Yu Darvish on Sunday.

Teoscar Hernández hits a solo home run in the seventh inning during the Dodgers’ 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“We’re going to see a slew of right-handed pitching,” Roberts said. “There are going to be right-handers coming out of the pen.

“Our right-handers have got to be better.”

On that score, the most encouraging development for the Dodgers on Friday was Hernández hitting what turned out to be the decisive home run.

“Teo came to life with a big homer,” Roberts said.

Hernández hit 33 home runs last season, when his OPS was at least .762 in each month of the season. His OPS has been below .762 in each month this season except the first one.

In the Dodgers’ first 29 games, he hit nine home runs. In the 93 games since then, he has hit 10.

“Some days, it’s good. Some days, it’s bad,” Hernández said. “Some days, it’s in between. Hitting is not easy. But I’m going to continue to keep working and try to be consistent for the month and a half, and hopefully in the playoffs.”

The pennant stretch comes first, and Roberts has faith in Hernández.

Said Roberts: “It’s an easy bet that, when the stakes get higher, Teo is going to really show up for us.”

Muncy does that, in getting on base and in circling the bases. In October, when the pitching can rise to the occasion, so can Muncy.

His OPS is higher in the playoffs than in the regular season. He walks way more often. He can elevate the Dodgers’ lineup in October, if the rest of the lineup can step up and help get him there.

The Dodgers finally had their storybook moment.

Until the Angels rewrote it with a walk-off ending.

In the top of the ninth inning at Angel Stadium on Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani lifted the Dodgers to the verge of a badly needed win, breaking a tie score with the kind of moment that could have jump-started the stretch run of their season.

With former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen on the mound, and a split crowd in Anaheim rising to its feet, Ohtani blasted a go-ahead home run deep to right field. He flipped his bat. The Dodgers’ dugout went wild. After so many recent blown leads and late-game meltdowns in recent weeks, the team was three outs away from finally turning the tide.

Instead, the Dodgers found yet a new way to crumble.

Once again, they let a winnable game go meekly by the wayside.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Angels tied the score after Alex Vesia gave up a leadoff single, a walk and an eventual Nolan Schanuel sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the 10th, they sealed their fifth-straight victory over the Dodgers this season on Jo Adell’s big-bouncing, walk-off RBI single.

A 7-6 loss for the Dodgers, that sent their spiraling season to a new dismal low.

Now, the Dodgers have lost three in a row and 20 of 32 since July 4. Now, what was once a nine-game lead in the National League West has been completely obliterated. The Dodgers and San Diego Padres are tied atop the standings. The Padres will come to Dodger Stadium this weekend with all the momentum, where a scuffling Dodgers club will await them.

Tuesday featured many more deflating subplots for the club.

Emmet Sheehan gave up five runs in a five-inning start. The team erased one early two-run deficit, only to go down two runs again. The lineup left the bases loaded with the score tied to end the top of the fifth inning. Ohtani lined into a soul-crushing triple-play with two aboard in the sixth.

But nothing will sting like the final two innings — when a potential turning-point moment instead resulted in more familiar heartache.

A Hawaii real estate investor and broker are suing Shohei Ohtani, claiming the Dodgers’ star and his agent got them fired from a $240-million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s coveted Hapuna Coast that they brought him in to endorse.

According to the lawsuit filed in Hawaii Circuit Court on Friday, Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo, increasingly demanded concessions from developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr. and real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto before demanding that their business partner, Kingsbarn Realty Capital, drop them from the deal.

“Balelo and [Ohtani], who were brought into the venture solely for [Ohtani’]s promotional and branding value, exploited their celebrity leverage to destabilize and ultimately dismantle Plaintiffs’ role in the project — for no reason other than their own financial self-interest,” the lawsuit claims.

The suit accuses Ohtani and Balelo of tortious interference and unjust enrichment. Hayes, a developer with 40 years of experience, and Matsumoto, who was to be the listing agent for the houses averaging $17.3 million each, say that Ohtani and Balelo also tried to undermine their interests in a second, neighboring venture.

A spokesman for Balelo’s agency, CAA Baseball, declined comment. Attempts to reach Kingsbarn officials for comment were not immediately successful.

“This case is about abuse of power,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants used threats and baseless legal claims to force a business partner to betray its contractual obligations and strip Plaintiffs of the very project they conceived and built.

“Defendants must be held accountable for their actions, not shielded by fame or behind-the-scenes agents acting with impunity. Plaintiffs bring this suit to expose Defendants’ misconduct and to ensure that the rules of contract, fair dealing, and accountability apply equally to all — celebrity or not.”

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, left, speaks with his agent, Nez Balelo, while attending a game between the Rams and New Orleans Saints at SoFi Stadium in December 2023.

(Ryan Sun / Associated Press)

Ohtani, 31, arrived from Japan in 2018 as perhaps the most heralded international star in baseball history, with an ability to both pitch and hit that made him doubly valuable to his team. A five-time All-Star and three-time most valuable player, he signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers before last season and helped the team win the 2024 World Series.

Investment materials for The Vista at Mauna Kea Resort, which remained online on Monday night, listed Hayes and Matsumoto as part of the management team, along with Kingsbarn. It called Ohtani “Japan’s Babe Ruth” and the “1st Resident,” giving him top billing ahead of the iconic Mauna Kea Resort, “one of the most celebrated hotels in Hawaii,” Hapuna Beach, “rated the #1 beach in America by Conde Nast Traveler” and two golf courses — one designed by Arnold Palmer, the other by Robert Trent Jones Sr.

“Ohtani will act as the celebrity spokesperson for the project and has committed to purchasing one of the 14 residences within the project,” the brochure says. “He also intends to spend significant time at The Vista in the off-season and will construct a small hitting and pitching facility for preseason training.”

The suit says the developers spent 11 years working on the deal and “as part of a bold marketing strategy” signed an endorsement deal in 2023 with Ohtani, “one of the most high-profile endorsements imaginable.”

“This partnership with Ohtani will elevate the demand and create buzz within the Japanese luxury vacation home market, which is a primary target audience for the project,” the investment brochure said. “We see Shohei Ohtani’s homeownership as having a significant impact on the global exposure of the project and expect to accelerate the pace of sales, thereby helping us achieve our pricing objectives.”

The suit said Balelo “quickly became a disruptive force,” threatening to pull Ohtani from the deal if concessions weren’t made.

“Kingsbarn began capitulating to Balelo’s every whim,” the suit said. “Over time, it became increasingly obvious that Kingsbarn was more concerned about preserving its relationship with [Ohtani] than honoring its obligations to its business partners.”

Last month, in what the suit called “a coordinated ambush,” Kingsbarn fired Hayes and Matsumoto.

“Kingsbarn openly admitted during the call that Balelo had demanded the terminations and that they were being done solely to placate him,” the suit said. “Plaintiffs stand to lose millions of dollars in compensation tied to projected homebuilding profit, construction management fees, and broker commissions.”

Golen writes for the Associated Press.

It took until August, but the starting rotation the Dodgers envisioned in spring training is intact and delivering.

Vowing not to revisit the predicament they found themselves in last postseason, when only two true starters and a stacked bullpen somehow patched together enough innings to win a World Series, the Dodgers added two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell to a rotation that already boasted four potential aces and several other candidates coming off injuries or ascending from the minor leagues.

Snell complained of shoulder inflammation April 2 after his second start and took his sweet time recovering — four months, to be precise. But if his performance against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium is a fair indication, the wait was worthwhile.

Snell struck out 10 in five scoreless innings of a 9-1 Dodgers victory, living up to the Snellzilla nickname he stole from his older brother as a brash 11-year-old and still uses as his Instagram handle. In two starts since coming off the injured list, the left-hander has 18 strikeouts in 10 innings.

The Dodgers offense was fueled by the long ball early on, with Max Muncy belting a two-run, opposite-field home run in the fourth inning and Shohei Ohtani absolutely crushing his 40th homer of the season 417 feet to dead center in the fifth with nobody on base.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits his 40th home run of the season Saturday against the Blue Jays.

(Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)

A six-run rally an inning later put the game away. Two hit batters and two walks set the table, and Dalton Rushing and Mookie Betts each delivered two-run singles with none out. Andy Pages drove in the last two with a two-out double, his second hit of the inning.

The win was the second in a row against Toronto (68-50), which remain in first place in the American League East. The series concludes Sunday with another formidable starter — Tyler Glasnow — taking the mound for the Dodgers (68-49).

Glasnow took a similar if less pronounced path than Snell this season, going on the injured list before the end of April and not returning until July 9. He has given up only one run in four of his five starts since returning and most recently went seven strong innings against the St. Louis Cardinals.

It’s clear that Snell and Glasnow are healthy, their arms as fresh and live as would be expected coming out of spring training. The same is true of Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw, two future Hall of Famers whose recoveries from injuries also were methodical and unhurried. Both are pitching well.

And so is Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the only starter whose health hasn’t cost him time off. He’s made 22 starts, going 10-7 with a 2.51 earned-run average and leads National League starters with eight scoreless outings.

The Dodgers employ a sixth starter to give Ohani and Yamamoto five to seven days off between starts. The job belonged to Dustin May until he was traded to the Red Sox at the deadline, creating an opportunity for Emmet Sheehan, who was impressive over 60 innings as a rookie in 2023, but had Tommy John surgery in May 2024.

He’s pitched well, posting a 3.00 ERA over 30 innings, giving the Dodgers a luxury they haven’t enjoyed in recent memory: trotting out a starting pitcher every night that can prevent runs through the middle innings.

That leaves the bullpen to finish the job, and injuries and inconsistency continue to riddle the relief corps. Roberts said help is on the way, with several key relievers on the mend. If they return as effective as the starters, pitching could be a Dodgers strength entering the postseason.

Already the home of Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles is now also the home of South Korea’s Shohei Ohtani.

Like Ohtani, Son Heung-min has been the most popular athlete in his home country by a wide margin for close to a decade. Like Ohtani, Son has a pleasant disposition that has endeared him to people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Son was introduced as the latest addition to LAFC at a news conference on Wednesday at BMO Stadium, and he was everything he was made out to be.

He came across as sincere.

He was warm.

He was funny.

“I’m here to win,” Son said. “I will perform and definitely show you some exciting …

“Are we calling it football or soccer?”

None of this means Son will turn LAFC into the Dodgers overnight, of course. By this point, Major League Soccer and its teams understand that profile players aren’t transformative figures as much as they are building blocks. Son will be the newest, and perhaps most solid, block that will be stacked on the foundation established by the club’s first designated player, the now-retired Carlos Vela.

Outside of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there might not be a player in the world who could be of a greater value than Son to LAFC, which continues to fight for relevance on multiple fronts. There was a reason the transfer fee paid by LAFC to Tottenham Hotspur of England was the highest in MLS history, a reported $26 million.

“Son’s arrival marks a new chapter, not just for LAFC but for the league and for football in the United States,” general manager John Thorrington said. “He brings not only incredible quality on the field but a magnetic presence off it, someone who inspires millions around the world and now will do so here in Los Angeles.”

The most talented Mexican player of his generation, Vela forged an immediate connection with the community, carving out a place for LAFC in the congested Los Angeles sports market. Son will do the same, as this city is home to a large Korean community.

Supporters of Mexico’s national soccer team also share a fondness of Son because of a late goal he scored against Germany in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup, which enabled El Tri to advance to the round of 16.

More than ethnic background, Vela’s success with LAFC was driven by performance. Son is expected to deliver on that front as well. Son might be 33, but he remains a world-class attacker. He should be one of MLS’ best players from the moment he steps on the field, if not the best after Messi of Inter Miami.

“We can say I’m old, but I still have good physicality, good legs and still I have good quality,” Son said.

South Korean national team Son Heung-min poses for a photo with his new LAFC jersey.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

LAFC has become a model franchise in MLS not just because of how it markets itself. The club makes smart soccer decisions and Son is the latest.

What will distinguish Son from Vela is the opportunity he will present LAFC to build its global brand.

“From the early days of building this club, we’ve dreamt of building a club that would win trophies and make a major positive impact in our community and Los Angeles, but also make a mark on the world stage of global football,” lead managing owner Bennett Rosenthal said.

As much success as it has enjoyed domestically, as much attention as it received for participating in the recent Club World Cup, LAFC doesn’t have as much international name recognition as Inter Miami, which employs Messi; or the Galaxy, for which David Beckham played; or even the New York Cosmos, which made its name by signing Pele in the 1970s.

Son played 10 seasons with Tottenham, and by one estimate, the club had 12 million supporters in South Korea — or about one in four people in the country. Koreans traveled to London to watch Son play for Tottenham, just as many Japanese people travel to watch Ohtani at Dodger Stadium. Korean companies sponsored the Spurs.

The eyes of South Korea have shifted to LAFC. The team scheduled Son’s introductory news conference for 2 p.m. local time — or 6 a.m. in South Korea. An estimated 40 Korean journalists were issued credentials to cover the event.

Son acknowledged that as he prepared for life after Tottenham, LAFC was “not my first choice.” A conversation with Thorrington after the season changed his mind.

“He showed me the destination where I should be,” Son said.

Son attended LAFC’s Leagues Cup victory over Tigres of Mexico on Tuesday night and received a loud ovation when he was shown on the video scoreboard.

“It was just insane,” he said. “I just wanted to run into the pitch.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass presents new LAFC star Son Heung-min with a certificate of recognition during an introductory news conference on Wednesday.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Son will be reunited with goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, his former teammate at Tottenham.

“He’s back to [being] my captain,” Son said. “So I have to say something good about him because otherwise in the locker room, he’s just going to kill me.”

Son laughed.

His personality will play in Los Angeles, just as it did in London. He will make LAFC a known commodity in South Korea, perhaps beyond. He will further enhance a structure that was built by Vela, ensuring the team’s next star will have an even greater platform on which to perform. He won’t be as prominent locally as Ohtani or Luka Doncic, but he doesn’t have to be.

The Dodgers are leading the majors in on-base-plus-slugging percentage as an offense this year. They are second in the National League in scoring, and third in team batting average.

They have the league’s top players in hitting (Will Smith batting .324 and Freddie Freeman batting .306) and OPS (Shohei Ohtani at .982 and Smith at .963).

They figure to have several players who will get MVP votes at the end of the season, including the odds-on favorite for the award in Ohtani.

And yet, as the club enters the stretch run of the season, their lineup might be the biggest question mark in their bid to defend last year’s World Series championship. Since the start of July, they have scored the third-fewest runs in the majors, have the second-lowest team batting average and the fourth-lowest OPS.

They stayed relatively quiet at the trade deadline, hopeful a number of struggling superstars would get things going over the campaign’s final two months. But to this point, only Freeman (who endured a two-month slump before heating up again on their recent nine-game trip) has shown tangible signs of a late-season revival.

“If you look at it from the offensive side, as far as our guys, they’ll be the first to tell you they’ve got to perform better and more consistently,” manager Dave Roberts said this past weekend, after utility outfielder Alex Call became the team’s only deadline addition to the lineup. “That’s something that we’re all counting on … Now it’s up to all of us to go out there and do our jobs.”

While that’s true of most hitters in the lineup, all the way down to Andy Pages and (even before his most recent ankle injury flare-up) Tommy Edman, there are three star-level players in particular the Dodgers have been waiting to round back into form.

Here’s a look at the problems plaguing each of them:

Mookie Betts

First 15 games: .304 average, .554 slugging percentage, .954 OPS

Last 87 games: .222 average, .327 slugging percentage, .616 OPS

When asked on Sunday for the umpteenth time this season if he knew what was wrong with Mookie Betts’ swing, Roberts failed to come up with an answer.

“Honestly, no,” Roberts said. “I know that he and the hitting coaches have been working diligently, consistently, intentionally. I think that the first thing, the easiest thing, to say is it’s a mechanical thing. So I guess kind of that’s where he’s at. But also, I do believe that there’s a mental part of it, too, which is sort of beating him down a little bit.”

When Betts was presented with the same question later Sunday afternoon, after running a season-long hitless streak to 17 at-bats and watching his batting average dip to .233, he was left searching for divine intervention.

“I’ve done everything I can possibly do,” he said. “It’s up to God at this point.”

Betts’ struggles are not for a lack of effort. He spends hours in the batting cage before (and sometimes after) almost every game. He has tried mechanical tweaks and mental cues and fundamental drills that in the past would get him back on track.

His approach has largely remained sound, as he ranks in the top 20% of big-leaguers in chase rate, whiff rate and strikeouts percentage, per Baseball Savant’s Statcast data.

And while his bat speed is in the 11th percentile of MLB hitters (and down almost two mph from his 39-homer season in 2023), it’s also about the same as he had last year, when he was still a .289 hitter with 19 home runs (in just 116 games) and a .863 OPS (which only trailed Shohei Ohtani for the best on the team).

“I really don’t know what else to do,” he said. “I don’t have any answers.”

Perhaps the most confounding metric: Betts is in the 99th percentile in “squared-up” rate, a metric that effectively determines when a ball is hit off the sweet spot of the bat.

But, even when Betts does make solid contact, he simply isn’t generating as much power as he usually does — ranking among the bottom third of big-league hitters in average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage; and watching fly balls that used to leave the yard die at the warning track, if they even make it that far.

While he has been a victim of some bad luck (his expected .252 batting average is almost 20 points higher than his actual mark), he has had no choice but to “go back to the drawing board” time and time again this year — gradually grating on his confidence as answers continually fail to appear.

“I don’t know anybody in the world that would have confidence in the stretch that’s going on [for me],” he said. “It sucks when you don’t get stuff done.”

Betts can be a streaky hitter. And the Dodgers’ hope is that, at some point over these final two months, he’ll find something that unlocks more pop in his bat, and go on the kind of heater that can make him an effective producer at the top of the lineup again.

Until that happens, however, questions will persist. About whether his shortstop play is to blame for his offensive decline (a theory multiple rival evaluators have increasingly pointed to of late as a reason for his struggles). About whether age is simply catching up to the soon-to-be 33-year-old veteran. And about whether he will ever be the same hitter he was once, amid a season-long slump almost no one saw coming.

Shohei Ohtani

First 70 games (before resuming pitching): .297 average, 1.034 OPS, 24% strikeout rate

Last 40 games (since resuming pitching): .230 average, .886 OPS, 31% strikeout rate

The easy demarcation line for Ohtani this year has been before and after he returned to pitching in mid-June, with offensive production dropping even as his stuff has ticked up on the mound.

Ohtani has still been a relatively productive hitter since then, continuing to hit home runs at a league-leading pace (he is tied with Kyle Schwarber for the NL lead with 38 on the year).

But he has become a much easier out the last couple months, as well, epitomized first and foremost by his climbing strikeout rate.

An over-aggressive approach would figure to be the easy explanation here. And there have been times, Roberts noted, the slugger appears to get into a “swing mode” that prevents him from laying off bad pitches.

But on the whole this season, Ohtani is actually swinging less often than he did last year, chasing pitches at an almost identical rate and continuing to draw more walks than almost anyone in the majors (his 71 free passes are seventh-most this season).

Ohtani’s problem has been an increase in swing-and-miss, with the reigning MVP coming up empty on more than one-third of his hacks.

It might simply be a byproduct of the added physical workload he has taken on since resuming two-way duties. But he has insisted such problems remain fixable, citing a lack of balance and consistency in his swing mechanics.

Like Betts, Ohtani can also be prone to more extreme highs and lows over the course of a year. Last season, for example, he hit just .235 with an .886 OPS in August, before turning around in September and batting .393 with a 1.225 OPS.

The Dodgers could use another late-season tear like that again this term. Whether he can do it while also ramping up as a pitcher looms as one of the biggest questions facing the Dodgers down the stretch this year.

Teoscar Hernández

First 33 games (pre-groin strain): .315 average, nine home runs, .933 OPS, 18% strikeout rate

Last 57 games (post-groin strain): .211 average, seven home runs, .619 OPS, 28% strikeout rate

Hernández’s midseason drop-off is perhaps the easiest to explain of any recently scuffling Dodgers hitter.

Before suffering a groin/adductor strain in early May, he was on an All-Star (and potentially even MVP-caliber) pace after re-signing with the Dodgers in the offseason.

Since then, however, the 32-year-old simply hasn’t looked the same — both at the plate, where he hasn’t been able to drive the ball as he usually does, and in the field, where his range has been clearly limited.

To that end, a foul ball he took off his foot last month hasn’t helped matters either.

There have been some recent signs that Hernández is getting healthy again. His slugging percentage has started to tick back up since getting a week off for the All-Star break. He has had more hard contact, especially to center and the opposite field.

“At the beginning [after my injury] it was a little hard,” Hernández said after hitting home runs in consecutive games at Fenway Park last week. “First I got my groin, then I got the foul off my foot. Couldn’t put a lot of weight [on it] for like two weeks. Thank God there was the break in there. I got those four days off, going through that and getting some treatment, getting some rest. And finally feel like myself again.”

But, it still hasn’t resulted in a total reversal of fortunes, with Hernández finishing the road trip going just five-for-25 with nine strikeouts and only one extra-base hit.

Last year, Hernández’s ability to be a run-producer behind the Dodgers’ star trio of hitters was crucial to both their regular-season and postseason offensive success. Lately, though, he has been more strikeout-prone and less opportunistic at the plate, contributing to a string of frustrating recent defeats marked by squandered chances in leverage opportunities.

“He’s bearing down, and he’s not trying to give at-bats away,” Roberts said. “He’s grinding.”

Much like the Dodgers’ other scuffling stars, the team will need him to fully snap out of it, and live up once again to the expectations the club had for him and the lineup at large.