PITTSBURGH –– Over much of his MLB career, much of Shohei Ohtani’s injury history has revolved around his twice-surgically-repaired right throwing elbow.
But when the two-way star left the Dodgers’ game Thursday night in Pittsburgh early with left knee inflammation, it harkened back to one of the other serious ailments that has impacted him during his time in the majors.
In September 2019, Ohtani underwent a season-ending surgery to address a rare congenital condition called bipartite patella in his left knee.
The condition, which is estimated to be present in only about 2% of people, is caused when the bones of the kneecap don’t fuse together at birth. Usually, it is asymptomatic.
That had initially been the case with Ohtani, who first learned about the issue before the start of the 2019 campaign.
However, as he began ramping up as a pitcher later that year in his return from his first career Tommy John surgery, his knee began bothering him to the point of requiring a surgical operation.
That history came flooding back Thursday, after Ohtani felt discomfort from running the bases in the Dodgers’ win over the Pirates.
The good news for the team: Manager Dave Roberts said that, at least initially, they didn’t believe this latest issue had any correlation to that past episode.
“I think [this is] more hamstring versus knee,” Roberts said, when asked directly whether Ohtani’s new knee problem was related to his 2019 surgery. “It’s behind the knee, but I think it’s the attachment of the knee and the hamstring.”
Roberts instead described that the team’s decision to take Ohtani out of the game as being more “proactive,” so as not to push the 31-year-old superstar who was coming off a 6 ⅔-inning pitching start the night immediately prior.
“I feel good about him being in there tomorrow,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ series-opener on Friday in Chicago against the White Sox. “But obviously with the travel tonight, we’ll just kind of see how he comes in.”
Since signing with the Dodgers at the start of 2024, Ohtani has not missed any time on the injured list. His only significant injury in that span came when he suffered a torn labrum in his shoulder on a slide in the World Series during his first year with the club, necessitating an offseason procedure before 2025.
Ohtani’s last IL stint of any kind was at the end of the 2023 season, when he sustained an oblique injury a few weeks after blowing out his elbow –– which ultimately led to a second career Tommy John that kept him from pitching again until last year.
As of Thursday night, the Dodgers were hopeful that streak of relative health wouldn’t be interrupted now, and that his latest knee problem was just a temporary blip.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
