The fourth strikeout against the Cardinals told Dave Roberts more than the box score could. Shohei Ohtani shook his right arm, winced, and walked away from the plate looking nothing like the hitter the Dodgers had grown used to seeing. Roberts later called it the “tip of the iceberg.”

The problem was getting Ohtani to slow down. The 32-year-old had made it clear he wanted to keep playing, and Roberts knew exactly why. “If he’s upright, he should play,” the Dodgers manager said. But there was a catch: if Ohtani looked as compromised as he did that night, Roberts admitted, “it’s really not helping anyone.” But that tug-of-war is now over.

The Dodgers have placed Ohtani on the 15-day injured list, finally pulling their two-way star away from the lineup after weeks of trying to keep him available.“It’s the right thing to do, we tried to kick the bucket as much as we could,” Roberts said after the decision to put Ohtani on the IL and recall Josue De Paula. And this time, even Roberts had reason to wonder if they had waited too long.

Shohei Ohtani missed six of the Dodgers’ last seven games due to issues in his right biceps and left knee. They initially put him on day-to-day, and he missed four games. After he came back, the Japanese superstar went 0-for-3 against the Cincinnati Reds on Monday. The Dodgers initially believed he had come through that return feeling well enough to continue, but one of his swings left his right biceps bothering him again. He was held out Tuesday, and by Wednesday, the Dodgers had run out of certainty about whether another day or two would actually change anything.

That was what finally tipped the decision. Roberts said the team huddled with Ohtani, the doctors and training staff and asked a simple question: how was he likely to feel by Friday or Saturday? There was no clear answer. “There was not much certainty that he’d be in a much better place,” Roberts said. “With that, just taking it off the table seemed like the best course of action.”

Ohtani has been struggling with knee discomfort for some time. The left-knee issue has been the primary reason he has not pitched since July 3, while his right biceps issue has affected both his hitting and his pitching buildup. He is now not expected to pitch again this season.

There was another clue that the physical toll was beginning to show at the plate. Since restarting his throwing program on Aug. 8, Ohtani had hit .198 with a .689 OPS and struck out 34 times, according to MLB. That stretch came despite an otherwise excellent season in which he entered this latest absence with a .902 OPS and 30 home runs.

Ohtani himself had acknowledged the uncomfortable reality behind that decline. “Of course the best mode of recovery is to completely not play,” he said Monday through interpreter Will Ireton. “But right now, I just want to make sure that I’m playing, playing well and just focusing on the now.”

That helps explain why the Dodgers kept trying to find a middle ground. Ohtani wanted to remain in the lineup, while the club wanted to preserve his availability for October without committing him to a minimum 15-day IL stint. As a two-way player, that minimum is longer than the standard 10-day stint for position players.

The Dodgers had already tried giving him four straight games off, hoping the break would reset both his body and his mind. Ohtani returned Monday against Cincinnati, but went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and was held out again the next day. Roberts had initially believed the four-day reset would be enough. He later admitted he would “love to go back and put him on the IL,” saying that at the time, everyone believed four days would be sufficient.

That admission matters because the IL was not suddenly an option the Dodgers discovered on Wednesday. They had been weighing it for days. The sticking point was what those 15 days would cost Ohtani this late in the season.

Now the calculation has changed. The Dodgers have won seven straight and sit four games ahead of Atlanta for the National League’s No. 2 seed, which carries a first-round bye. That cushion gives Los Angeles some room to prioritize getting Ohtani healthy rather than squeezing more regular-season at-bats out of him.

And Roberts made the distinction clear: if this were October already, Ohtani would play. “If it were a postseason game tomorrow, he would be in the lineup,” he said. The goal is to use these two weeks to get him into a better physical state before the games actually matter most.

Loyalists turn on Dave Roberts and the Dodgers

That explanation has done little to settle the fans who believe the Dodgers should have reached this point sooner.

“The team really f***ed this up,” a fan commented on the post from Dodgers Nation. “They should’ve done it a long time ago, and let’s hope there’s no permanent damage. And what’s his injury? Doc is really vague on that and how much under 100% he’ll be when he comes off the IL.”

That last concern is difficult to dismiss completely, because the Dodgers’ own timeline leaves Ohtani with very little margin for error. If the IL stint is backdated to Tuesday, he would be eligible to return on Sept. 23, leaving only five regular-season games to get his timing back before the postseason. Roberts acknowledged that isn’t ideal, but argued that continuing to play while regressing would be worse.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to go on the IL when you declined the All-Star Game?” one fan asked. “Unfortunately, the coaching staff and front office are incompetent, so they forced Ohtani to overexert himself, making things even worse. If Roberts had made a decision sooner, we wouldn’t have ended up with results like this.”

There is, however, a difference between saying the Dodgers waited too long and saying they caused Ohtani’s condition to worsen. There is no evidence establishing that the team’s decision caused additional injury. What is clear is that the four-day reset did not solve the problem, and Ohtani was still unable to string together consecutive games without renewed discomfort.

Shohei Ohtani wanted to be on the roster, and the Dodgers didn’t want to lose their biggest star in the middle of the season. That made the decision less straightforward than simply shutting him down at the first sign of discomfort. But after Ohtani returned from four days off and immediately needed another day away, the argument for continuing to push became harder to make.

“They should have put him on the IL months ago….[EXPLETIVE] IDIOTS!” read another comment.

However, not everyone is taking it negatively. One loyalist said, “Should’ve been done a while ago, but it makes me excited to see some young blood.”

That “young blood” now has a name, Josue De Paula. MLB Pipeline ranks the 21-year-old outfielder as the No. 6 overall prospect, and his Double-A season explains why his promotion is more than a routine replacement move.

Through 124 games for Tulsa, De Paula was hitting .303/.401/.547 with 27 home runs, 104 RBIs, 106 runs and 31 stolen bases. He will get the chance to make his Major League debut while stepping into the lineup of a team that has won seven straight without Ohtani.

“Good. Let him rest. Sheesh!!!” one user commented.

That may ultimately be the simplest argument for the Dodgers’ decision. Los Angeles has continued winning while Ohtani has been absent, and the club has enough cushion in the standings to sacrifice regular-season at-bats now for a healthier Ohtani in October.