Shohei Ohtani (oblique) day-to-day, to avoid IL for now

Angels manager Phil Nevin, speaking to reporters Tuesday night, describedShohei Ohtani's right oblique injury as "just a tiny bit of inflammation," which made the two-way star a late scratch from Monday's game and kept him out of the lineup for Los Angeles' eventual 5-4 loss to the visitingBaltimore Orioles.

Ohtani, Nevin said, will avoid the injured list, at least for now, and will be monitored on a day-to-day basis.

The Angels, 11 games below .500 and 13 games out of a playoff spot, are no longer in contention. The American League MVP race is leaning so heavily in Ohtani's favor that Las Vegas oddsmakers stopped accepting bets weeks ago. And yet Ohtani -- two months away from a highly profitable run at free agency, while nursing a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament -- continues to do everything possible to keep hitting.

"I think it just says a lot about who he is," Nevin said before Tuesday's game. "And just for the record, he really wants to play right now. This is something that he's upset by. He wants to play, and we want him to play. Of course, we want him to play. But it's just a credit to who he is. You start something, you're going to finish it. Like I said, he wants to be out there. I know he does.

"But right now, we're still evaluating to see where we're at. Those things [oblique injuries] can be finicky at times, so we got to make sure on it."

Ohtani has not spoken publicly since Aug. 9, which wound up being his penultimate pitching start of 2023, and he is not expected to address the media at least until season's end. His agent, Nez Balelo of CAA, spoke moments before Ohtani injured himself during pregame batting practice and said Ohtani still plans on being a two-way player in the future and that they're still deciding a next course of action to treat his UCL tear.

Ohtani, 29, hasn't homered since Aug. 23, the day he learned of a new tear in his pitching elbow, and yet he still leads the American League in home runs with 44. His 1.066 OPS leads the sport. And so does his 9.0 FanGraphs wins above replacement. (His closest competitor in the AL, Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager, entered play Tuesday with 5.6 fWAR.)

The Triple Crown and the AL home run record -- the latter of which was set by Aaron Judge last year -- are no longer within reach nor is the Angels' first postseason appearance since 2014.

And yet Tuesday marked just Ohtani's second time out of the Angels' starting lineup since May 2.