Shohei Ohtani wasn’t in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup on Friday night because he is away from the team on paternity, another reminder that even the most celebrated workers in the sports machine are still managed through the team’s schedule, announcements, and expectations. The team said in a post on X that the two-way superstar is expected to return this weekend, and manager Dave Roberts said after a 6-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles that he hopes Ohtani returns Saturday but had not talked to him.
Who Gets to Know, and When
Roberts said he found out very recently that Ohtani was going to be a father again and added, “Keeping his privacy,” smiling. The team’s lineup for Friday’s series opener came out less than an hour before gametime, with Ryan Ward listed as the designated hitter batting seventh. Asked three hours before the game about the delayed lineup, Roberts said he was working out some things with some position players and made no mention of Ohtani. The timing shows how tightly the club controls information around the people it employs, down to the last hour before the game.
Roberts was asked about Ohtani’s sore left knee and said he had not spoken to him Friday. “Just assuming that after the off day he’s in a good spot,” the manager said. Ohtani, who turns 32 on July 5, and his 29-year-old wife, Mamiko Tanaka, became first-time parents in April 2025 with the birth of their daughter. He first announced on social media in December 2024 that the couple was expecting. The famously private Ohtani has never publicly revealed her name and has carefully avoided showing her face in the rare family photos he posts to his social media.
The Club’s Schedule Comes First
Ohtani wasn’t placed on MLB’s paternity list, even though the team announced he was away from the team. That detail matters in a system where the institution decides which absence gets formal recognition and which gets folded into the machinery of “expected to return this weekend.” Roberts often mentions if a player is expecting a baby, and the team typically announces when they have been placed on paternity leave. Here, the club still set the terms, the language, and the public timeline.
The same apparatus is managing Will Smith, who is still dealing with a neck injury that has him on the injured list. The three-time All-Star was due to return Friday but Roberts said Smith won’t be activated this weekend and may not travel with the team on its road trip that begins Monday in Minnesota. Roberts said Smith had a scan and was going to have an injection to kind of minimize the sensation. “He feels OK, not great,” the manager said. “We’re just trying to make sure that we don’t have a setback when he comes back.”
Bodies, Injuries, and the Machine
Smith has continued doing baseball activities, including a full workout Tuesday. That detail sits beside the rest of the club’s careful phrasing: scan, injection, minimize the sensation, don’t have a setback. It is the language of a workplace where bodies are monitored, delayed, and returned to production when the schedule allows.
The Dodgers’ Friday lineup, the delayed announcement, the paternity absence, and the injury management all point to the same hierarchy: decisions are made at the top, while the people doing the work are expected to fit themselves around the calendar. Even the private life of a player becomes part of the public management of the team, while another player’s neck injury is processed through scans and planned injections before the road trip begins Monday in Minnesota.
In the end, the facts on the board are simple: Ohtani was away on paternity, Smith remained sidelined with a neck injury, and the Dodgers kept both situations inside the club’s controlled flow of information. The people on the field move when the institution says they can.