By the bottom of the 10th inning, Wednesday night’s game had already become a nightmare for the Dodgers.

Then, in one troublesome at-bat from Shohei Ohtani, it all got significantly more alarming.

At the end of an 0-for-4 performance that included his first four-strikeout game this year, Ohtani showed obvious discomfort with his right arm during his final trip to the plate –– the same arm in which he has been battling a biceps issue for much of this year.

It was concerning enough that, following the team’s 8-6 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals, manager Dave Roberts sounded uncertain about Ohtani’s availability for Thursday, and perhaps beyond even that.

“I’m going to talk to him tomorrow and really try to figure it out,” Roberts said. “Get with Thomas [Albert, head athletic trainer] and figure out where he’s at physically.”

Later, when asked if that meant potentially giving Ohtani just one day off, or could include a potentially longer spell out of the lineup, Roberts could only offer a foreboding lack of clarity.

“It won’t be an IL –– unless it is,” he said. “It’s very unlikely. But I do think that I’m going to have a conversation. We’ll decide after I talk to him what’s the extent of it.”

Ever since June, Ohtani has been playing through both a biceps issue and a lingering left knee injury. While it has sidelined him from pitching, both he and the Dodgers have been adamant it hasn’t affected his form at the plate.

But then came Wednesday, when Ohtani extended a recent 6-for-46 slump with what was a clearly compromised swing.

The most obvious signs came in the 10th, when he shook his arm and grimaced after each of his swings.

“I saw the same thing that everyone saw,” Roberts said. “I saw the shaking of the arm. I saw the wincing. Clearly, the swings aren’t who he is. Obviously there’s some compensation. So I’m going to talk to him and then I’ll make a decision tomorrow about his availability.”