LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani did something that has never happened before in the annals of postseason baseball.
Ohtani took the mound to start against the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium on Friday night. He walked the first batter and then struck out the next three on the way to six shutout innings.
He then led off the bottom of the first inning for the Los Angeles Dodgers and parked a full-count pitch deep into the right field pavilion, his first of three homers on the night.
Not even Babe Ruth did that. But Ohtani did, showing everyone why the Dodgers were willing to pay him $700 million over 10 years, with $680 million of that money deferred.
“That first inning. It was amazing,” said Dodgers owner Mark Walter, the NL championship trophy nestled in his arms after the Dodgers claimed the best-of-seven series by sweeping the Brewers with a 5-1 win, booking a spot in their second straight World Series. “There’s not much more you can ask from a player.”
The first inning heroics was only the beginning of the night for Ohtani, whose three homers were wedged into a pitching performance that went into the seventh inning. He left at 100 pitches without allowing a run on two hits. He walked three and struck out 10, and he was credited with his second win in two starts this postseason. Ohtani’s historic Game 4 earned him the series MVP.
“You can’t script this,” Walter said. “Six innings of shutout ball and three home runs? That’s crazy.”
The three homers totaled 1,342 feet, the second in the fourth inning striking the right field pavilion roof some 469 feet away where few players have feared to tread. It hit the roof and rolled off into the concession area behind it.
“That was the greatest postseason performance of all time and there have been a lot of postseason games,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “There’s a reason why he’s the greatest player on the planet. What he did on the mound. What he did with the bat. He created a lot of memories for a lot of people.”
The Brewers, whose 97-65 record was the best in MLB this season, were inept in the series scoring five runs on 14 hits in the four games.
“We were part of an iconic performance, maybe the best individual performance ever in a postseason game,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said, echoing the common sentiment. “I don’t think anybody can argue with that. A guy punches out 10 and hits three homers. I’m proud of our team, but it came to an end tonight.”
The Brewers had previously handled Ohtani well; in the first three games, they held him to 2-for-11 in the series with no homers, five whiffs and a .721 OPS. He finished the series 5-for-14 while his OPS leapt to 1.643 with the results of the one game. He’s had five homers now in the postseason, all of which came in two games; he had two homers in Game 1 of a Wild Card Series sweep of the Cincinnati Reds.
“The last couple days I felt pretty good at the plate,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “And just because of the postseason, the small sample size, the lack of performance really skews in this short period of time.”
Still, between a four-game victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in an NL Division Series and this NLCS, Ohtani has struggled. He went 6-for-32 (.188) with the three homers, five RBIs, 14 strikeouts and six walks, three of them intentional.
His slump lifted Friday night.
“He’s probably the greatest free agent signing of all-time,” Walter, who signed Ohtani in late 2023, said. “I mean, he’s unbelievable. We’re just lucky to have him.”
The Dodgers bring in over $100 million a season in marketing and advertising from Asian firms, thanks to their three Japanese pitchers: Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaski.
“We make a lot of money from those guys, for sure,” Walter said. “But it takes a team to win, it really does.”
The Dodgers will play either the Seattle Mariners or the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series beginning Friday night in either Los Angeles or Toronto, depending on the results of the American League Championship Series. The Mariners lead 3-2 with Game 6 on Sunday night at Rogers Centre. Game 7 is on Monday night, if necessary.
In Seattle on Friday night, the Mariners were trailing the Blue Jays, 2-1, in the eighth inning in T-Mobile Park when Cal Raleigh tied it with his fourth playoff homer. He led Major League Baseball with 60 on the season this year.
Raleigh’s homer happened almost simultaneously to Ohtani’s first-inning blast about 1,000 miles away. Eugenio Suarez followed Raleigh with a grand slam later in the inning to seal the 6-2 win, sending the Mariners back to Toronto with two chances of qualifying for the World Series, a first in franchise history.
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