Shohei Ohtani hit three home runs and pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning on Friday night, putting on a spectacular two-way show for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series (NCLS).
With 10 strikeouts on the mound and three homers that traveled a combined 1,342 feet at the plate, Ohtani made history in both of his dual roles for the defending champion Dodgers, who returned to the World Series with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers that completed a four-game sweep.
“I don’t think there’s any better performance in post-season history,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said during his team’s clubhouse celebration.
Photo: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / USA Today
Ohtani earned the NLCS Most Valuable Player (MVP) award almost solely on the strength of this one iconic game.
After striking out three Brewers in the top of the first, Ohtani hit the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in major league history. He hit a second titanic drive in the fourth and launched a third solo homer in the seventh.
The three-time MVP became the 12th player to hit three homers in a postseason game and the first since Chris Taylor did it for the Dodgers in October 2021. Kike Hernandez also accomplished the feat for the Dodgers in the 2017 NLCS.
Along with his theatrics at the plate, Ohtani dominated Milwaukee batters during his second postseason pitching start.
He allowed only two hits and walked off the mound to a stadium-shaking ovation after the first two Brewers hitters reached base in the seventh, but reliever Alex Vesia escaped the jam to keep the Dodgers’ 4-0 lead intact.
Ohtani quickly broke out of his postseason hitting slump with a 446-foot shot to right field off Brewers starter Jose Quintana for the first leadoff homer hit by a pitcher in any big league game.
Ohtani became the first pitcher to record three strikeouts and a homer in the same inning in the post-season, and the first to do it in any game since Huascar Ynoa for Atlanta in 2021 — before the National League permanently adopted the designated hitter.
Ohtani followed with a 469-foot shot off a low, inside cutter from Chad Patrick in the fourth. The ball cleared the pavilion roof above the right-center bleachers at Dodger Stadium after leaving his bat at 116.9mph.
Ohtani is the first Dodgers player with two multihomer games in one postseason.
He also became the first player with two homers in a regular-season or postseason game with 116mph or higher exit velocity since Statcast started tracking in 2015.
ON THE MOUND
The three-time MVP issued a leadoff walk to Brice Turang in the first, but struck out Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich and William Contreras with a mix of 100mph fastballs and vicious breaking pitches.
Chourio doubled leading off the fourth for Milwaukee’s first hit, but Ohtani stranded him with a groundout and two strikeouts. Ohtani got two more strikeouts in the fifth, leaving the mound to yet another standing ovation.
Yelich drew a walk in the seventh before Contreras chased Ohtani with a single on his 100th pitch.
Before his first homer, Ohtani had not contributed much to the Dodgers with his bat during their otherwise impressive playoff run to the brink of another World Series.
The team still had a feeling Ohtani would seize the opportunity to do something special.
“I think this is his opportunity to make his mark on this series, and so we’re going to see his best effort,” Roberts said several hours before Game 4. “I feel good that he’s pitching for us, and there’s going to be some serious focus and compete tonight.”
Ohtani’s first homer was a no-doubt shot, and he paused briefly at the plate to admire it. His second leadoff homer of the post-season ended his eight-game drought since he hit two in the Wild Card Series opener against Cincinnati.
His second homer was even more astounding, and the screams of disbelief from the Chavez Ravine crowd emphasized the historic nature of the night.
He also drew a walk in the second inning.
Before Game 4, Ohtani was in a 6-for-38 drought as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter in the post-season. The fearsome slugger who was third in the majors with a franchise-record 55 homers during the regular season had not connected since Sept. 30.
Although Ohtani tripled and scored in the first inning of Game 3 against Milwaukee, that was his only extra-base hit in the last eight games — and just one of his six postseason RBIs came in the past five games.
Ohtani went 2 for 11 with three walks in his first three games against the Brewers.
‘BEST IN THE GAME’
“That’s probably one of the best games anybody’s ever played in baseball, I would imagine,” Brewers slugger Christian Yelich said. “Just an awesome performance from him tonight. He’s the best player in the game for a reason, and he definitely showed that tonight.”
“It’s really hard to do one, and he did two things at the same time,” Brewers veteran left-hander Jose Quintana said.
“You stop for a second and look at this guy, it’s unbelievable. We stayed with the plan, and it was a great night for him. This was not the way we wanted it to end, but at the same time, it was an amazing season for us,” he added.
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