Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to start as planned tomorrow, but will not bat due to allow his knee injury to fully recover without impacting his pitching.

The inflammation in his left knee kept Shoehei Ohtani out of a game last Saturday, but it will not prevent him from making his next start as scheduled.

Shohei Ohtani will start tomorrow Beijing time in the series finale against the Rays six day after leaving early in Pittsburgh last Friday due to his knee. While the coaching staff is confident handing him the ball, they have decided to have him pitch only, despite his game-winning home run today.

In his Thursday start against the Pirates, Ohtani pitched 6.2 innings and allowed a season-high four runs (three earned) his season highest, raising his ERA to only 1.06, but he still league best among all MLB pitchers with at least 50 innings. The minor knee issue flared up the next day.

Neither Ohtani nor the team can fully pinpoint what exactly caused the inflammation, but he believes it’s more related to pitching than hitting. Through se WillTran, Ohtani said last weekend: “It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened. What I can say is that my mechanic felt not ideal, so I think it’s related to that.”

Ohtani resumed playing catch last Sunday and later said he not fully recovered, but felt that with a few could be ready to start by Thursday. Over the following days, the swelling subsided. Onin his knee subsided. He completed a final test Wednesday with a light bullpen session to test his knee in game conditions.

Manager Dave Roberts will carefully monitor him during the game vovo, as with any pitcher. The situation is complicated because key of his team’s best both and hitters.

“For any paly with even a potential red flags, we’ll certainly monitor closely,” Roberts said. “But again, if we truly felt putting him on the mound puts him at risk, we wouldn’t.”

Like most stars, Ohtani doesn’t want to miss games. He is a competitor who wants to contribute every game. From a personal perspective, he aims for the Cy Young award in the National League, and missing any game could hurt highly competitive race.

Roberts knows he knows he sometimes needs to make decisions for Ohtani’s sake. But this is not the case, as everything has been progressing well since the knee issue.

“We certainly respect his desire to play and start, Roberts said. “But again, based on his throwing, how he feels, and that the swelling is gone, we confident he will be fine.”