A traffic jam kept Shohei Ohtani from making it to the ballpark in time for his regular pregame pitching routine, and the Los Angeles Angels scratched him from his scheduled start Thursday night against the Oakland Athletics.

He was shifted to designated hitter.

"That kept pushing him back," Joe Maddon said. "For us, Shohei's most comfortable, he's pretty much regimented to get everything going about 4 o'clock for his start. It exceeded that by maybe an hour, so we started calling the audible at that point to not pitch him tonight. And if we're not going to pitch him, we're going to DH him."

Ohtani was in the lineup batting second against the A's and went 0-for-3 with a walk.