Shohei Ohtani hit three home runs and struck out ten in arguably the greatest post-season game ever. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
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With apologies to Jim Thorpe and Deion Sanders, two athletes who made it to the Hall of Fame playing on both sides of the ball, the world has never seen anyone in the same stratosphere as the inimitable Shohei Ohtani. What he continues to do – both pitching and hitting – in the most difficult league in the world, is, well, out of this world. Jayson Stark of The Athletic repeatedly asks, “are we sure he is human?”
Ohtani is the presumptive National League MVP, which will be his fourth such award, and third in a row (his one loss was to Aaron Judge after he hit 62 homers). He won it last year after becoming the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs (he hit 54) and steal 50 bases (he stole 59). He did that while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery, and thus was unable to add to his two-way playing lore.
This season Shohei got back on the mound to resume that part of his career. Los Angeles was very careful, limiting him to 47 innings over 14 games in order to make sure that he was ready for October. But in that limited exposure, all the big righty did was strike out 62 against nine walks, have a 2.87 ERA, and an even more impressive 1.90 FIP.
In the batter’s box, it was more of the same. Even carrying the weight of pitching for half the season, Ohtani slashed .282/.392/.622, and led the league with a 1.014 OPS. He had a 179 OPS+, meaning he was 79% better than the average (offensive) player. He scored 146 runs and had 380 total bases (both of which also led the league).
Coming into Friday night’s game at Dodger Stadium, Ohtani had only pitched once in the post-season. In that game in Philadelphia, he threw six innings, gave up three earned runs on three hits, and struck out nine. Focused on his pitching, he went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts at the plate.
In fact, Ohtani has been in a pretty palpable slump. Coming into Game 4 of the National League Championship series against the Milwaukee Brewers, he was 3-for-29 with his only extra base hit being an off-balance, swinging-with-his-arms-only triple to lead off Game 3. He had struck out 14 times in his last five games. Some people were beginning to wonder.
With a pennant in sight, Ohtani took the mound at 5:38pm on Friday night in the City of Angels (as Vin Scully liked to say), and proceeded to walk the first batter he faced, Brice Turang. Then he took over. Jackson Chourio struck out on a 100-mph fastball; Christian Yelich struck out on a 100-mph fastball; and William Contreras struck out on an 88-mph sweeper. Ohtani then jogged off the mound, donned his batting gloves and various pads, stepped into the box, and hit a ball 117-mph that landed 446 feet later in the back row of the right field pavilion. Suffice it to say, no pitcher has ever struck out the side and hit a lead-off homer in a playoff game. Shohei was just getting started.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, after striking out six Brewers, Ohtani became only the third left handed batter in the 63-year history of Dodger Stadium to hit a ball out of the actual park. (It should be noted that Kyle Schwarber became the second to do it just over a week ago, but his was 14-feet shorter). Ohtani’s 469-foot blast gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. But more than that, it blew the Dodgers’ players (and fans’) minds.
The Dodgers’ bullpen lost their minds after Shohei’s second homer Friday night.
Screengrab Twitter @TalkinBaseball_
After he trotted around the bases a second time, Ohtani put his glove on, went to the mound, and struck out two more Brewers in the fifth inning, and two more in the sixth. After a walk and a single to lead off the Brewers’ half of the seventh, manager Dave Roberts came to get the ball. Ohtani walked to dugout to a standing ovation as more than 52,000 fans cheered for the greatest player they have ever seen. And yet, Ohtani wasn’t done.
After a double play ended any threat in the seventh, and after the Dodgers faithful sang “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” with the fervor that a fanbase has when they know they are just two half innings away from the World Series, Ohtani came to the plate once again. On a 1-2 count, he hit Trevor Megill’s 99-mph fastball 427 feet just to left of dead center for his third homer of the night. When all of the math was done, Ohtani had hit balls more than a quarter of a mile (1,342 feet in all).
The announcers were in awe:.
Fans were in awe.
And, of course, his teammates were in awe.
When asked to describe what he just saw, former MVP Mookie Betts said: “…I mean, there’s just no more words you can really say for what he does.”
Third baseman Max Muncy, who is no stranger to post-season heroics: “…I was expecting nothing short of incredible today, and he proved me wrong. He went beyond incredible.”
The guy with a front row seat for at least half of this performance, catcher Will Smith, said, “I didn’t really appreciate it until after. Like, he actually did that?”
Alex Vesia, who came in to relieve Shohei in the seventh inning: “At that point, it’s got to be the greatest game ever, right?” Well, if you are not counting the night in Miami last season when he went 6-for-6 with three homers to become the inaugural member of the 50/50 club. But, on this stage, doing it on both sides of the ball, Vesia may be correct.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, in the history of the game, 503 players have hit three homers in a game and 1,550 have struck out ten or more. But, until Friday night in Los Angeles, no one had ever done both.
Just Baseball added this nugget:
Forget Babe Ruth, who pitched in 166 games in his career (including the post-season), and only once did he hit even two home runs. In that game, he struck out one batter.
Manager Dave Roberts said that “was the greatest, probably the greatest, post-season performance of all-time.” And the guy in the opposing dugout, Brewers manager Pat Murphy, summed it up as follows: “We were part of tonight an iconic, maybe the best individual performance ever in a post-season game. I don’t think anybody can argue with that.”
Nope, there are no arguments there.
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