LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 When Shohei Ohtani\u2019s third home run rocketed off his bat and streaked toward the left-field bleachers, the few fans still sitting at Dodger Stadium rose frantically, as if every single seat in the sold-out building had received a shock.<\/p>\n
At the plate and on the mound, Ohtani was simply electrifying in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series while he conjured one of the greatest single-game performances in baseball history \u2014 perhaps even all of sports.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 two-way superstar delivered the 13th three-homer game in postseason annals Friday night, connecting in the first, fourth and seventh innings for three epic solo shots traveling a combined 1,342 feet.<\/p>\n
He was similarly brilliant on the mound, throwing scoreless, two-hit ball into the seventh inning with 10 strikeouts and a masterful variety in his 100 pitches.<\/p>\n
Ohtani also did it all at an extraordinarily important moment for his team: The Dodgers\u2019 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> sent the defending champions back to the World Series with a four-game sweep of the majors\u2019 best regular-season squad.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was probably the greatest postseason performance of all time,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of postseason games. And there\u2019s a reason why he\u2019s the greatest player on the planet. What he did on the mound, what he did at the bat, he created a lot of memories for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n After the raucous postgame celebration of the Dodgers\u2019 second straight NL pennant since he joined the club<\/a>, Ohtani attempted to deflect some of the spotlight to his teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were times during the postseason where Teo (Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez) and Mookie (Betts) picked me up, and this time around, it was my turn to be able to perform,\u201d Ohtani said through his interpreter. \u201cAnd I think just looking back over the course of the entire postseason, I haven\u2019t performed to the expectation, but I think today we saw what the left-handed hitters could do.\u201d<\/p>\n One left-handed hitter in particular carried the Dodgers to the World Series \u2014 and Ohtani, who reached base four times in four plate appearances, even identified the perfect capper to his historic evening.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really a team effort, so I hope everybody in LA and Japan and all over the world can enjoy a really good sake,\u201d said Ohtani, a connoisseur of the famed Japanese rice wine, while the crowd roared.<\/p>\n Ohtani earned the NLCS MVP award almost solely on the strength of this one iconic game. He was 2 for 11 with a triple and three walks in the first three games of the series.<\/p>\n He had been in an October slump by his lofty standards, going 6 for 38 in the postseason and sitting on an eight-game homer drought after hitting a franchise-record 55 in the regular season.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the nature of Ohtani\u2019s boundless talent, however: He can transform into a sporting superhero seemingly whenever he chooses, and the mound was his telephone booth in Game 4.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way he was struggling this postseason, and not to let it affect him and keep his psyche, his confidence, the same, is really impressive,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo we knew that he was going to come through at some point. And what better night to do it while he was pitching, too.\u201d<\/p>\n After Ohtani struck out three Brewers in the top of the first inning, he hit the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in major league history during the bottom half \u2014 and his night of incredible feats was just beginning.<\/p>\n His second homer was a jaw-dropping, 469-foot drive that cleared the pavilion roof in right-center \u2014 a place where few homers ever land \u2014 after leaving his bat at 116.9 mph.<\/p>\n His seventh-inning shot settled in the left-center bleachers and crushed the Brewers, who had finally chased him from the mound by getting two runners on in the top of the inning, only to go scoreless anyway when reliever Alex Vesia escaped the jam.<\/p>\n The three-time MVP is the first player with a three-homer postseason game since Chris Taylor did it for the Dodgers in October 2021. Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez, Ohtani\u2019s current teammate, also accomplished the feat for Los Angeles in the 2017 NLCS.<\/p>\n Ohtani became the third pitcher and first in 87 years to hit three homers in a game in which he was a starting pitcher, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The others were Jim Tobin for the Boston Braves on May 13, 1942, and Guy Hecker for Louisville on Aug. 15, 1886.<\/p>\n Ohtani, who hadn\u2019t gone deep since hitting two in Los Angeles\u2019 playoff opener against Cincinnati, is the first Dodgers player with two multihomer games in one postseason. He also became the first player with two homers in any game with 116 mph or higher exit velocity since Statcast started tracking in 2015.<\/p>\n And the right-hander was outstanding on the mound as well.<\/p>\n He issued two early walks but didn\u2019t allow a hit until Jackson Chourio led off the fourth with a ground-rule double. Ohtani stranded him with a grounder and two strikeouts.<\/p>\n He got two more punchouts in the fifth and sixth, with Dodgers fans rising for ovations each time he walked back to the dugout to exchange his glove for a bat.<\/p>\n While his two-way role requires extensive off-field work to stay ready for both jobs, Ohtani had pitched in only two games over the past 30 days before Game 4, thanks to the permutations of the Dodgers\u2019 schedule.<\/p>\n In his last regular-season start, Ohtani pitched six scoreless innings of five-hit ball<\/a> against Arizona on Sept. 23, throwing a season-high 91 pitches. In his MLB postseason mound debut Oct. 4, he gave up three runs over six innings with nine strikeouts to earn the victory<\/a> in Los Angeles\u2019 5-3 win at Philadelphia in the Division Series opener.<\/p>\n Ohtani also had the motivation of matching his fellow Dodgers starters, who have been phenomenal on the mound ever since the playoff race got serious.<\/p>\n The Dodgers\u2019 rotation held batters in September to an MLB record-low .173 average for a single month. Since the postseason began, Los Angeles\u2019 four starting pitchers \u2014 Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Ohtani \u2014 have allowed just 10 earned runs while pitching 64 1\/3 innings with 81 strikeouts over their 10 playoff games.<\/p>\n Ohtani and the Dodgers have earned a week off before the World Series begins next Friday at either Toronto\u2019s Rogers Centre against the Blue Jays or Chavez Ravine against the Seattle Mariners.<\/p>\n This club has struggled with long layoffs in past postseasons, but Ohtani acknowledged he can use a break \u2014 and the Dodgers will spend at least the next couple of days basking in the brilliance they witnessed while punching their ticket to the Fall Classic.<\/p>\n \u201cI do see it as a positive in terms of being able to rest, both as a position player and as a pitcher,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some off days, but we\u2019ve played some very meaningful games that were very stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n