Dodger fans, do you realize what you\u2019re watching here? Los Angeles, can you understand the singular greatness that plays here? Fall Classic, are you ready for another dose of Sho-time?<\/p>\n
Ohtani and the Dodgers<\/a> are back on baseball\u2019s grandest stage, arguably the best player in baseball history and the defending champions returning together to the World Series Friday night, Ohtani pitching and hitting his star-struck teammates into a four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n The final score was 5-1<\/a>, but, really, it was over at 1-0, Ohtani\u2019s thunderous leadoff homer after his thundering three strikeouts igniting a dancing Dodger Stadium crowd and squelching the Brewers before the first inning was even 10 minutes old.<\/p>\n How far did that first home-run actually travel? Back, back, back into forever, it was the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in baseball history, regular season or postseason, even the legendary Babe Ruth never did it.<\/p>\n The amazing unicorn basically created the same wizardry again in the fourth inning and added a third longball in the seventh in carrying the Dodgers to their second consecutive World Series and fifth in nine years while further cementing their status as one of baseball\u2019s historic dynasties.<\/p>\n They are attempting to become the first back-to-back champions in 25 years, since the 1999-2000 Yankees.<\/p>\n Beginning Oct. 24 against either the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays, the Dodgers will enter this World Series with something none of those past great teams \u2014 or any teams ever \u2014 possessed.<\/p>\n All together now\u2026 Ohhhhhtani!<\/p>\n And to think, before the game he was slumping, two-for-11 in the NLCS, batting .158 for the postseason, swinging so wildly that he actually emerged from his usual indoor batting cage fortress to take batting practice on the field during Wednesday\u2019s workout<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facing nagging questions before the workout about whether the strain of pitching was affecting his hitting, he denied any correlation.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily think that the pitching has affected my hitting performance,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cJust on the pitching side, as long as I control what I can control, I feel pretty good about putting up results. On the hitting side, just the stance, the mechanics, that\u2019s something that I do \u2014 it\u2019s a constant work in progress. I don\u2019t necessarily think so. It\u2019s hard to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone should have known something was up during that special batting practice when Ohtani drove a ball off the right-field roof. He was clearly embarrassed by his performance and vowed to silence the critics.<\/p>\n His pitching was never in question \u2014 he was the winning pitcher<\/a> with six strong innings in the division series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies \u2014 but he came out firing anyway Friday in the top of the first when he struck out two Brewers on 100-mph fastballs and another on an 88-mph breaking ball.<\/p>\n In the bottom of the first, he finally shut everybody up when he connected on a full-count slurve from the Brewers\u2019 lefty starter Jose Quintana and drove it into oblivion.<\/p>\n The Dodgers\u2019 Shohei Ohtani celebrates striking out the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 Jake Bauers in the fourth inning during Game 4 of the NLCS.<\/p>\n (Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Nearly the same scene repeated itself in the fourth inning, two strikeouts followed by a deafening home run against Chad Patrick.<\/p>\n By then, he was so overpowering in so many ways, in the sixth inning fans started a cheer with a timing likely never before heard at a baseball game.<\/p>\n They chanted, \u201cMVP\u2026MVP\u2026MVP\u201d…while Ohtani was on the mound.<\/p>\n When Ohtani finally left the game in the seventh after giving up a walk and a single, organist Dieter Ruehle<\/a> played, \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d while the stadium shook with a prolonged standing ovation.<\/p>\n But he wasn\u2019t done yet.<\/p>\n After finishing with six scoreless, two-hit, 10-strikeout innings on the mound, he came out of the dugout again in the seventh. For most great pitchers, they\u2019d only emerge for a curtain call. But this being Ohtani, he was still in the game, and for pitcher Trevor MeGill, it was curtains.<\/p>\n The fastball disappeared into the crowd and what eventually emerged was surely the greatest postseason stat line in baseball history.<\/p>\n Three home runs at the plate, six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts on the mound, in an NLCS game that sent his team to the World Series.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760764934_593_hqdefault.jpg\")
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