There may not be much Ohtani to see when Giants face the Dodgers in final weeks

Baseball's best team is going to see a lot of the San Francisco Giants during these final days of the regular season. Given that it's a brave new world around here, we'll make sure all of them get a proper introduction.

The Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't possibly know much about Jonah Cox, Turner Hill, Shay Whitcomb , Drew Cavanaugh, Trent Harris - there, that covers about half the group. The defending champs are too busy trying to figure out their postseason plans, and it's a lot more complicated than you may think.

The Dodgers without Shohei Ohtani ? Unthinkable.

Resting uncomfortably on the injured list, felled by a sore left knee and right arm, Ohtani won't be in uniform for the Giants ' three-game series that begins Friday at Dodger Stadium. When the two teams close out the season at Oracle Park on Sept. 25-27, he will have been eligible for only two prior games, against San Diego at home.

Until recently, the Dodgers tried to shake off Ohtani's aches and pains. This is the greatest talent in the history of baseball, a man who looks damn near indestructible at times. He rises above everyone, godlike, as he lodges a three-run homer alongside a pitching masterpiece.

But these are significant injuries. The left knee is his landing leg as he strides off the mound, and that can't be a "sort of" recovery. Adding the element of a constantly sore biceps, Ohtani hasn't pitched since July 3 - and now there's no chance he takes that risk until the postseason.

Nobody's counting on that. For one thing, the Dodgers have a rock-solid rotation that would run four deep in October: Yoshinobu Yamamoto , Tarik Skubal , Blake Snell (looking just about unhittable since he got back on the mound) and Tyler Glasnow .

Ohtani could be kind of a cool choice to pitch some emergency relief in October - he's done it before - and it's possible that if the Dodgers avoid having to play a wild-card round, he will have had enough time to get the arm back in shape. That hardly seems likely, though. The Dodgers were in denial about the extent of Ohtani's injuries (they're openly wishing now they'd put him on the IL a month earlier), and he's kind of a wreck right now, admitting, "I think I want to focus on offense."

That's a troubling issue, as well. He's gone a sorrowful 6-for-49 since his last home run (Aug. 18), and as much as the prideful Ohtani hates to reveal even the slightest vulnerability, he has often appeared to be in significant pain swinging the bat.

For the Giants, that final weekend carries untold promise. They could knock the Dodgers into the wild-card round, depending on how Atlanta and Milwaukee fare down the stretch. Then again, L.A. would like to believe Ohtani puts the whole mess behind him, stunning the Oracle crowd with titanic blasts into the bay.

The 3-Dot doesn't quite see it that way. We'll say the heroes in that series will be named Molina, Basabe, Knizner and Furman. Just as we knew all along.

There are things about Bryce Eldridge - the technique, the patience, the confidence, the big moments - that suggest he'll fit into a fine Giants tradition. As far back as you'd like to go, this franchise is a haven for power-hitting lefty first basemen.

Hall of Famers abound, from 19th-century star Roger Connor to Bill Terry, Johnny Mize and Willie McCovey. Will Clark should be in Cooperstown, and there's always hope.

Longtime mainstay Whitey Lockman showed a measure of power for the New York teams of the 1950s. Darrell Evans mostly played third base in San Francisco , but he slugged 30 homers and made the All-Star team as a first baseman in 1983. Save a special place for J.T. Snow, who became strictly a lefty hitter (no longer switch hitting) mid-career and hit some very important home runs.

I would include Bill White, a first-rate prospect who broke with the 1956 Giants and had a fine season, counting Robin Roberts and Don Newcombe among his 22-homer victims, then went into the military service. Not much had changed upon his return, other than the Giants had moved to San Francisco and the position was suddenly loaded with Orlando Cepeda and the fast-rising McCovey. (White was dealt to St. Louis in 1959 and started for the '64 world champs.)

Nobody's forgetting Brandon Belt in this discussion, and the way Rafael Devers is hitting, he'll be in the mythical team photo. Right along with "Late Night" LaMonte Wade and Travis Ishikawa , who gets there with a single swing.

As this is written, the U.S. team and France are on course to meet in Sunday's final of the FIBA women's basketball World Cup. Interesting that the two have switched places in the latest FIBA world rankings, with France now ranked No. 1, and this is no surprise. With Gabby Williams and fellow WNBA standout Leila Lacan (Connecticut) in the starting lineup, I defy anyone to find a better backcourt bench than Marine Johannes, Carla Leite, Pauline Astier and the Valkyries ' Janelle Salaün (who plays on the wing) in the history of women's international play - non-USA division.

They're calling Johannes a "circus act" now, in the most delightful context. Some of her off-hand bullet passes must be re-watched to confirm the reality. She can hit any kind of drive shot in traffic with either hand, and she has a Stephen Curry -like array of trickery. In a dead-ball moment Thursday against China, she got the ball in the far right corner, looked directly at midcourt and swished the shot without a glance.

Johannes is a beacon of deferential grace, as such drawing absolutely no attention to herself. After a while, though, you realize you've never seen a player with such an artistic array of long-range shots, at times drifting far to her left or shooting off one leg, just for the heck of it.

On the other side of the court in this dream final, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are finding harmony as a formidable pair: Reese the greatest rebounder in WNBA history and Clark back to peak performance as a magnificent passer and outside (way outside) shooter. Their feud was never the violent or stare-down kind, but they seemed a bit dismissive of each other until now, as teammates. And they're finding it quite the kick.

• Final WNBA note, as relayed by si.com: A complicated formula known as Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus (RAPM) takes into account ball security, playmaking, assist-to-turnover ratio, shot accuracy, getting to the free-throw line, and defense broken down to specific opponents. And who emerges as the league's Most Impactful Player , based on statistics right up to the World Cup break? The Valkyries' Veronica Burton . Good call, for she's all of that.

There was widespread celebration and relief in Bay Area circles when KNBR reinstated Greg Papa. There was lingering resentment, as well. It's great to know that Papa will have regular "Lunch With Papa" and "Niners Update" segments on the station, and that he seems very much on course to be calling 49ers games again. But it's hard to forget the incomprehensibly cruel nature of KNBR's decision to dismiss a legendary broadcaster undergoing life-threatening hospitalization and taking a severe financial hit.

The KNBR people offered no explanation, just a bunch of meaningless words. Sources say it had to be a "cost-cutting move," and that's oddly fitting. This cut came with massive cost.

Bruce Jenkins writes the 3-Dot Lounge for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jenksurf@gmail.com; Twitter: @Bruce_Jenkins1