Ohtani hitless for fourth straight game as Dodgers snap skid
Shohei Ohtani’s four-game hitless streak has arrived as the Dodgers’ offense has gone cold, leaving Los Angeles searching for answers beyond one star.
Shohei Ohtani’s slump mattered at Busch Stadium because it arrived when the Los Angeles Dodgers needed him most. The two-way star went 0-for-3 and was hit by a pitch in Sunday’s 4-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, leaving him hitless in four straight games for the first time since 2022 and 0-for-14 over that span.
The Dodgers snapped a four-game losing streak with the win, but the larger concern was the shape of the offense around Ohtani. Los Angeles had gone six straight games without a home run, its longest drought since an eight-game stretch in July 2014, and had scored two runs or fewer in each of its previous four games. One account put the dry spell at 232 plate appearances without a homer. That is a jarring slide for a club that led the majors with 42 home runs in its first 22 games of the 2026 season.
Freddie Freeman, who went 2-for-4 and drove in a run, helped steady the lineup just enough to end the skid. He was blunt about the broader problem, saying the Dodgers “just has not been good enough” and that there was no way to sugarcoat it. The Cardinals had already taken control of the series by keeping Ohtani quiet for all 12 of his at-bats across the three games, a reminder that opponents are treating him as the centerpiece of the Dodgers’ attack.
Manager Dave Roberts said he believes Ohtani will “come out of it at some point,” and described the star as caught between approaches during the series, sometimes beaten by pulled grounders and sometimes by fly balls to the big part of the field. Roberts said Ohtani’s standards are so high that frustration is there even if it does not always show.
That tension is part of what makes the slump so noticeable in Los Angeles. Ohtani is not just another bat in the lineup. He is central to the Dodgers’ offense, their title expectations and their public image, which means every empty at-bat lands harder when the team is already scuffling. Sunday’s win offered a reset, but it did not erase the bigger question facing the Dodgers: whether Ohtani’s current stretch is random variance, a mechanical issue or another sign that pressure is tightening around a team still trying to find rhythm in a long season.
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