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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Seattle Mariners 6-2 at home to force a decisive Game 7 in the American League Championship Series.

Vladdy launched his sixth home run of the postseason, setting the Blue Jays’ franchise record for the most in a single playoff run.

Guerrero Jr. went 2-of-4 at the plate with a single home run. Addison Barger added in three RBIs on 2-for-3 hitting with a home run. Isiah Kiner-Falefa finished with a RBI.

Blue Jays ace Trey Yesavage set the tone early with a commanding performance on the mound, striking out seven over 5.2 innings while allowing just six hits and two earned runs.Â

MLB fans were thrilled as Vladdy and the Blue Jays forced an ALCS Game 7.Â

The Blue Jays refused to go home on Sunday, jumping out to a dominant start while holding Seattle to two straight three-up, three-down innings.

Barger hit a RBI double to bring in Daulton Varsho for the game’s first run in the second inning, followed by Kiner-Falefa reaching on an infield single to score Ernie Clement.

With a 2-0 lead entering the third, Barger launched a two-run homer to give the Blue Jays a 4-0 advantage. Guerrero Jr. added to the lead in the fifth with a solo home run.

Seattle responded in the fifth, plating two runs before Guerrero Jr. scored on a throwing error by Cal Raleigh to extend Toronto’s lead to 6-2.

With one last chance in the top of the ninth, the Mariners couldn’t rally, and the Blue Jays held on for the win to force Game 7.

The Blue Jays lost the first two games of the ALCS at home but responded by taking the next two on the road to even the series.

Seattle pulled back ahead with a home win before the matchup returned to Toronto for the final two games, where the Blue Jays fought back once more to tie the series 3-3 on Sunday.

While the Mariners and Blue Jays continue their battle in the American League, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been waiting to see who they will face in the World Series after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday, Oct. 17.

The winner-take-all Game 7 of the ALCS will remain in Toronto, with first pitch scheduled for 8:08 p.m. ET.

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In tossing six scoreless innings and hitting about 1,430 feet of home runs, Shohei Ohtani put up probably the most unique performance in postseason history Friday in NLCS Game 5 against the Brewers. It was perhaps the most spectacular athletic performance ever to take place on a baseball field. Maybe even any sort of field. But was it the greatest individual performance in major league postseason history?

That’s a difficult question, one that many would argue hinges on context. Obviously, starring in Game 4 of the NLCS with a 3-0 series lead isn’t the same as Game 7 of World Series.

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But what is it up against? Here’s a rundown of perhaps the top 10 single-game performances in MLB postseason history.

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Best Individual MLB Postseason Performances

Honorable Mention

1963 World Series Game 1: Sandy Koufax fans 15 Yankees

Koufax threw two shutouts in the 1965 World Series, including one in Game 7 to finish off the Twins. Still, perhaps even more impressive was his two-game set in a sweep of the Yankees in the 1963 World Series. Koufax outdueled Whitey Ford twice in 5-2 and 2-1 victories, and his 15 strikeouts in Game 1 set a postseason record that has only since been exceeded twice, including once by…

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Honorable Mention

1968 World Series Game 1: Bob Gibsonâ€s 17-K shutout

Fairly or not, Gibsonâ€s Game 7 loss keeps the Game 1 performance out of the top 10 here. Prior to that, he outdueled 1968 AL Cy Young winner Denny McLain twice in 4-0 and 10-1 complete-game victories. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, McLain came back out and won Game 6 and Mickey Lolich, working on two days†rest after winning Game 5, got the better of Gibson as the Tigers won Game 7 by a 4-1 score.

Honorable Mention

2022 ALDS Game 1: Yordan Alvarez walks it off in ninth

In all of postseason history, two individual performances have amounted to at least a 1.0 Win Probability Added, which is a measure of how each event in a game changed win expectancy (a first-inning homer might increase a team’s chances of winning from 50 to 60 percent, which would be a 0.1 win expectancy, while Kirk Gibson’s famous walkoff homer in the 1988 World Series was worth 0.87). The first of those was pulled off by Babe Ruth the pitcher, who allowed one run over 14 innings to win Game 2 of the 1916 World Series for the Red Sox. The second was by Alvarez, who had already driven in two runs against the Mariners when he hit a three-run homer off Paul Sewald with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to give the Astros a 7-5 win. That changed the Astros’ win expectancy from nine percent to 100. But, of course, it was Game 1 of the ALDS.

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Honorable Mention

2010 NLDS Game 1: Roy Halladayâ€s no-hitter in postseason debut

The Blue Jays never reached the playoffs in Halladayâ€s 12 seasons in Toronto, so the 33-year-old, who was about to win his second Cy Young Award in his first season with the Phillies, was making his postseason debut when he faced the Reds to start the 2010 NLDS. What followed was his second no-hitter of the year (the first was also a perfect game), as he allowed just a single walk to the Reds.

10) 1921 World Series Game 8: Art Nehf shuts out Yankees

Yes, Game 8, as this was the fourth and final World Series to use a best-of-nine format. The New York Giants†starter, Nehf, was matched up with Waite Hoyt for the third time after losing Game 2 by a 3-0 score and game 5 by a 3-1 margin. This time, Nehf got the better of the future Hall of Famer in a 1-0 game, ending the series with the Giants winning 5-3. It helped a bit that Babe Ruth was limited to a pinch-hitting appearance by a bad knee.

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9) 1999 ALDS Game 5: Troy Oâ€Leary & Pedro Martinez finish off Cleveland

Pick either. After losing the first two games of the best-of-five series, the Red Sox stormed back to take Games 3 and 4 by 9-3 and 23-7 margins. Game 5 was setting up as another shootout, with Cleveland leading 8-7 after three in spite of Oâ€Learyâ€s grand slam in the third. Thatâ€s when Martinez, who had been forced to leave Game 1 with a shoulder problem, took over. He pitched six hitless innings with eight strikeouts, and Oâ€Leary hit a second homer, a three-run shot, to break an 8-8 tie in the seventh. The seven RBI from Oâ€Leary is still tied for the postseason record.

8) 1967 World Series Game 7: Bob Gibson goes distance, homers in win

Gibson didn’t really need to homer off Boston’s Jim Lonborg, who was also going for third win of the World Series, to pull off the Game 7 victory here, but it was the cherry on top. Gibson won Games 1, 4 and 7 in the series, allowing a total of three runs in his three complete games.

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7) 1977 World Series Game 6: Reggie Jackson hits three home runs

With the Yankees trying to close out the Dodgers, the newly coined “Mr. October†made sure the nickname would stick, homering on all three of his swings in an 8-4 win. Jackson walked in his first plate appearance and scored on a homer from Chris Chambliss. He then homered in the fourth, fifth and eighth, plating a total of five runs in the 8-4 victory.

6) 1956 World Series Game 5: Don Larsenâ€s perfect game

Larsen had allowed nine runs — five earned — over 5 2/3 innings in two career postseason appearances for the Yankees when he suddenly turned in one of the most famous performances of all-time in the 1956 World Series, pitching a perfect game in a 2-0 win over the Dodgers. Facing a lineup loaded with five future Hall of Famers, he struck out seven while going 27 up and 27 down. It was the only ever postseason no-hitter until Halladayâ€s in the 2010 NLCS.

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5) 1962 World Series Game 7: Ralph Terry downs Giants in Game 7

Mickey Mantle versus Willie Mays turned out to be a dud, as both superstars struggled in the second and final World Series matchup (both were rookies when the Yankees and Giants previously met in 1951). Terry, in his one and only All-Star campaign, turned out to be the difference maker. After taking a tough 2-0 loss in Game 2, he went the distance in a 5-3 victory in Game 5 and then hurled a shutout in Game 7, with Willie McCovey lining out to second baseman Bill Richardson to end a 1-0 game.

4) 2011 World Series Game 6: David Freese ties it, wins it against Rangers

A rather anonymous regular until this point, Freese had already put together a whopper of a postseason by the time the Cardinals-Rangers World Series got to Game 6. He went 0-for-3 with a walk in his first four plate appearances that night, but he had a two-run triple over Nelson Cruzâ€s head to tie game in the ninth and then a walkoff homer in the bottom of the 11th to send the series to Game 7. He had a two-run double in that one, too, as the Cardinals won the championship. In all, he hit .397 with five homers, eight doubles and 21 RBI in 18 postseason games.

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3) 2025 NLCS Game 4: Shohei Ohtani homers three times, strikes out 10

Could anyone else do what Ohtani did in finishing off the Brewers? No, not a chance. He hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium and touched 100 mph on the radar gun twice, throwing the 11 hardest pitches of the game. Ohtaniâ€s three-homer game was the 13th in postseason history, and he struck out 10 over six scoreless innings in the 5-1 victory. Ranking his performance on a list like this just comes down to how much one wants to weigh leverage. If Ohtani had been mediocre with a 3-0 series lead in the NLCS, the Dodgers still might have won the game and almost certainly would have won the series. Thatâ€s not the case with most of these other candidates.

2) 2014 World Series Game 7: Madison Bumgarner closes out stellar series

About the closest anyone has ever come to winning a World Series by himself, Bumgarner entered Game 7 against the Royals having already pitched seven innings of one-run ball in Game 1 and a complete-game shutout in Game 5. Going into Game 7, it was figured that he might have one or two innings in him on two-days rest, but he took the ball to begin the fifth for the Giants and never gave it up, throwing five scoreless innings to finish off a 3-2 victory.

1) 1991 World Series Game 7: Jack Morris outlasts John Smoltz in 1-0 win

The performance that made him a Hall of Famer. Morris, in his lone year with the Twins, won Game 1 against the Braves and then took a no-decision in his first matchup with Smoltz in Game 4, which Atlanta went on to win. Game 7 saw both pitchers work on three days†rest, and Smoltz was incredible for 7 1/3 innings in the scoreless duel. Morris, meanwhile, kept plugging along, throwing 10 scoreless innings before Gene Larkin singled in Dan Gladden to give the Twins the title. No one since has pitched more than nine innings in a postseason game.

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  David SchoenfieldOct 19, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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  • Covers MLB for ESPN.com
  • Former deputy editor of Page 2
  • Been with ESPN.com since 1995

Are we having fun yet? Friday was one of the most unforgettable days ever seen in the playoffs, with Eugenio Suarez’s go-ahead grand slam rocking T-Mobile Park and putting the Seattle Mariners one win away from the World Series, and then Shohei Ohtani’s historic three-homer, 10-strikeout performance that goes down as perhaps the single greatest individual performance in postseason history.

Let’s call it a top-five day of all time and add this to our list of future projects to research. Meanwhile, with Ohtani’s Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, we’re left with one game Sunday: The Seattle Mariners vs. the Toronto Blue Jays, Game 6 of the ALCS.

Let’s dig into it with some of the keys to watch with the remaining World Series spot at stake.

Guerrero is having a monster postseason, hitting .457/.524/.971 with five home runs. After a hitless first two games of the ALCS, he did his best Roy Hobbs impersonation in Seattle, going 7-for-11 with five extra-base hits. He has just two strikeouts in 42 postseason plate appearances, and he has had 15 balls in play register over 100 mph, including six of his seven hits at T-Mobile.

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“He’s a special player, a special talent, an awesome guy to be around,” teammate Ernie Clement said. “He’s earned every bit of success that he’s having, and I couldn’t be happier for him. Just really proud of the work he’s put in. To do it on the biggest stages, it’s a testament to his work.”

In Game 5, the Mariners intentionally walked Guerrero twice, once in the fourth inning with nobody out and a runner on second base — his second intentional walk of the postseason with nobody out, the first time that has happened since 2016 — and then in the seventh with two outs and a runner on second.

The Mariners escaped both jams, but they’re playing with fire — and that’s whether they pitch to him or whether they put him on. It’s certainly not an easy decision for manager Dan Wilson with Guerrero so locked in, but eventually one of those intentional walks is going to backfire and potentially lead to a big inning.

Toronto’s challenge: Getting Cal Raleigh out

Raleigh is following up his historic 60-homer season with an outstanding postseason of his own, hitting .333/.435/.692 with four home runs, the one Mariner who has provided consistent offense. Suarez’s slam was the moment for the history books in Game 5, but that moment might never happen if Raleigh doesn’t first tie the game leading off the eighth inning with his towering home run to left that looked high enough to soar over the Space Needle.

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“Oh my god, that ball took forever to get down,” said teammate Bryan Woo. “I can’t say that I’m surprised anymore, but he just continues to impress and show up in big moments.”

The Blue Jays have mostly gone right after Raleigh, who has drawn three walks in five games, one of those intentional. That included the game-tying home run when Brendon Little fell behind 2-0 but came in with a fastball — a little too much down the middle.

“A lot of times I get out there and just start swinging and try to hit something hard,” Raleigh said, “but I was patient waiting for my pitch there and understanding to let the game come to me, try and make solid contact, don’t need a home run, don’t need to try to hit a ball 500 feet, just do something good and adrenaline will usually take over in those moments.”

Toronto’s potential secret hero: Ernie Clement

Following the Blue Jays’ win in Game 3, Clement called himself “probably the worst hitter in baseball” a couple years ago. He was referring to 2022, when he hit .184/.243/.209 in 179 plate appearances with the Guardians and Athletics — which led to the Guardians letting him go, and then the A’s, with the Blue Jays claiming him on waivers during spring training in 2023.

The one-time worst hitter in baseball played 157 games this season, had his best season at the plate with a .277/.313/.398 line and 46 extra-base hits, and is a Gold Glove finalist at two positions — third base (where he started 66 games) and the utility slot (he also started games at second base, shortstop and first base).

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He has followed that up with an exceptional postseason, hitting .429 with 15 hits, the most for a player in his first nine career postseason games since Daniel Murphy in 2015. He attributes his success to learning from his failures — “I’ve had quite a few of those,” he said — and understanding that he’s at his best when he’s swinging often, even if that goes against the modern convention of waiting for your pitch.

“I just started to lean into my strength a little bit, which is putting the bat on the ball. I kind of tried to work the count a little bit and maybe try to draw some walks and hit for more power, and that’s just not really my game. Over the last couple years, I’ve learned to just make it hard on the opposing pitchers with my ability to get hits on pitchers’ pitches, and I’ve just really been more aggressive.”

Seattle’s potential secret hero: Bryan Woo

The Mariners’ top starter in the regular season had been sidelined since Sept. 19 due to a right pectoral strain. He wasn’t on the ALDS roster but finally made his postseason debut in Game 5, pitching two innings in relief in Game 5. Alejandro Kirk greeted him with a ringing double and then Clement drove him with an RBI single, although bounced back with a scoreless seventh, getting out of that jam when Kirk tapped back to the mound.

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It wasn’t necessarily a stellar effort — he didn’t record a strikeout and had just two swings and misses out of 28 pitches — but it was good enough. He did enjoy running through the “flames” as he left the bullpen for the mound. “Yeah, I told Logan [Gilbert] when he did it the other day, he looked like the coolest he’s ever looked, so I tried to replicate that.”

Woo said he’ll have to wait and see how he feels over the next couple of days, and he isn’t stretched back out to start yet but said “I’d love to contribute the next couple of games.” Given Wilson’s quick hook with Luis Castillo in Game 4 and relatively quick hook with Miller in Game 5, Woo’s potential to throw multiple innings to help bridge the gap to closer Andres Munoz looms large, whether it’s in Game 6 or Game 7.

Key stat to watch: 28 vs. 49

The Blue Jays have struck out just 28 times in the first five games compared to 49 for the Mariners. The Blue Jays had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors in the regular season and have been striking out even less often during the playoffs (just 14.4% of the time in the ALCS). That hasn’t actually produced much more hard contact in this series, however, as the Jays have 53 balls in play classified as hard-hit balls (95-plus mph) while the Mariners have hit 51. The Jays have 14 at 105-plus mph, and the Mariners have 15.

Still, on Friday everything went the Mariners’ way.

“To be honest, we dodged a lot of bullets today,” Raleigh said. There was a the double play on a line drive to first baseman Josh Naylor, Leo Rivas made a nice leaping grab of a line drive up the middle, Raleigh turned Clement’s ball in front of the plate into another double play and Randy Arozarena made a leaping grab at the wall in the eighth to rob Clement of a potential home run.

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Over the long haul, swing-and-miss is still a good thing for pitching staffs, and Seattle’s hasn’t generated nearly as much as Toronto’s: The Jays have swung and missed 70 times compared to 102 for the Mariners.

Logan Gilbert, Seattle’s Game 6 starter, was a big swing-and-miss pitcher during the regular season with the third highest strikeout rate among pitchers with at least 100 innings, behind only Zack Wheeler and Chris Sale. He lasted just three innings in his Game 2 start, however, generating just five swinging strikes in 58 pitches. The Mariners will hope that poor effort was a result of starting on two days of rest after pitching two innings in relief in the 15-inning win over Detroit in the ALDS.

Likewise, Trey Yesavage, Toronto’s rookie starter who has pitched just 23.1 innings in the big leagues, will try to find his form from his ALDS start against the Yankees when he struck out 11 in 5.1 hitless innings. The Mariners got to him for five runs in four innings in Game 2 as he walked three, and Julio Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in the first inning.

The key decision: When to go to the bullpens

Both managers have deployed quick hooks with the starters — and both saw those moves backfire in the three games in Seattle. In Game 4, Wilson pulled Luis Castillo in the third inning after just 48 pitches, the shortest start of Castillo’s career, and went early to his high-leverage relievers, but Gabe Speier walked in one of Castillo’s runs, and Matt Brash threw a wild pitch to let in one of the two runs Speier allowed. Wilson doubled in Game 5, pulling Bryce Miller after a leadoff single in the fifth even though he had yet to allow a run. Brash let that inherited runner score, and then Bryan Woo later allowed another run.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider’s decision in Game 5 might have been even more questionable, leaving closer Jeff Hoffman in the pen in the eighth while going first to Brendon Little and then to Seranthony Dominguez, and they combined to allow five runs in blowing the 2-1 lead. Hoffman never got in the game.

Little came on and gave up the home run to Raleigh and then walked the next two batters.

“We talked about it all series,” Schneider said after the game. “Little’s been one of our best pitchers in big spots. Tough guy to elevate. Cal’s a really good hitter. I get it, man. After that, you got to settle down and throw strikes too. So that’s been part of Little’s game. So has strikeouts. Again, I trust every single guy on this roster. It’s hard. No one feels worse than Little, no one feels worse than Ser right now, or me. But I trust every single guy on this roster. Today it didn’t work out, but we’ve won two games in a row a whole lot this year.”

That’s where we’re at: The Blue Jays need to win two to reach their first World Series since 1993. The Mariners need one to reach their first. Ohtani and the Dodgers await. Let’s play some ball.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are well on their way to a second, consecutive World Series title after a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series and will almost certainly open as favorites to win the Commissioner’s Trophy, regardless of whether they play Seattle or Toronto.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the team will not be silent this offseason, with the Dodgers expected to target Kyle Tucker.

The third baseman missed time due to injury but still hit .266 and accumulated 133 hits, 22 home runs, and 73 RBI, so it is easy to see why the franchise would be interested in adding him to their lineup.

The team possesses an option on Max Muncy’s contract, and should they choose not to pick it up, they would need a new third baseman, making the potential for Tucker’s arrival in the City of Angels even greater.

There is something to be said about chemistry, though, and its role in the Dodgers’ second World Series trip.

The roster in 2025 is nearly identical to that of the 2024 championship squad. The extent to which manager Dave Roberts knows his players and how to utilize them to get the desired outcome.

The players know each other’s tendencies and skill sets. Potentially replacing Muncy to bring in Tucker, while it would be an upgrade offensively on paper, may disrupt the chemistry the team has at this point and threaten to derail the closest thing to a dynasty MLB has had since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.

For that reason, while it is mighty appealing to add another superstar player to a lineup full of them, it is best not to toy with a good thing.

Especially if the 2025 squad is able to become the first repeat champions since those same Yankees.

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There has never been an MLB player like Shohei Ohtani, and he just authored his masterpiece — “The Ohtani Game” — on Friday in Game 4 of the NLCS.

Facing a Milwaukee Brewers team that held the best record in MLB during the regular season, Ohtani posted three mammoth homers in a 3-for-3 night at the plate and struck out 10 in six-plus scoreless innings on the mound, almost single-handedly pushing the Dodgers to a 5-1 win that ended a series sweep.

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He had the three hardest-hit balls of the game, and the 11 hardest-thrown pitches. He had the Dodger Stadium fans screaming. He had his teammates ranging from stunned silence to hilarious guffawing. He had his manager plotting to “ruin baseball.” He had media scrambling to figure out what you even say when a man with three MVP awards (soon to be four), a World Series ring and MLB’s only 50-50 season surpasses himself.

He also had Brewers manager Pat Murphy tipping his cap in defeat. As the Dodgers received the Warren C. Giles Trophy and Ohtani received his well-deserved NLCS MVP Award, Murphy described the game as “maybe the best individual performance ever in a postseason game.”

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And that somehow may be underselling it. We might have just watched the greatest performance, bar none, in the history of baseball. That’s a heavy title, though, so let’s go through Ohtani’s competition.

Shohei Ohtani’s NLCS Game 4 might never be topped. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

We should spell out that we’re specifically talking about entire games here rather than one huge moment, and are trying to not include performances where there seems to be a clear upgrade. So Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series won’t be here, nor will, say, a postseason no-hitter be here when there’s already a postseason perfect game.

On that note …

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Don Larsen’s perfect game

The only perfect game ever thrown in the postseason, and it happened in a pivotal Game 5 that helped push the New York Yankees to a seven-game win over the defending champion Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 Fall Classic.

Larsen struck out seven and needed only 97 pitches to get all 27 outs against a Dodgers lineup that featured five future Hall of Famers in Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges and Roy Campanella. Oh, and he posted a sacrifice bunt that helped score the Yankees’ second run in a 2-0 win.

Almost by definition, it’s hard to imagine a better performance on the game’s biggest stage. If you still want to call this the greatest single-game performance in MLB history, we won’t stop you.

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Sandy Koufax’s Game 7 triumph

The Dodgers legend earned a spot on this list through pure perseverance.

At first glance, a 10-strikeout, three-hit shutout in Game 7 of the 1965 World Series is an incredible achievement. But also consider that Koufax was pitching on two days’ rest after throwing another shutout in Game 5. Consider that Koufax had invited immense scrutiny by sitting out Game 1 of the series because it was Yom Kippur. Consider that Koufax didn’t have his legendary curveball working in that game, so he blew away the Minnesota Twins with just his fastball.

And consider that Koufax did it a year after being diagnosed with traumatic arthritis in his pitching arm, which caused him to pitch through unimaginable pain for the final two legendary seasons of his career.

“Greatness” is an amorphous concept. It can be taken to mean anything from statistical production to shows of character, but when you take in just how much Koufax had going against him, you can’t deny there isn’t some definition of greatness where this game is on top.

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Bob Gibson’s 17-strikeout shutout

The St. Louis Cardinals ace was so dominant in 1968 that baseball lowered the mound, lest the “Year of the Pitcher” have repeats. And Game 1 of that year’s World Series was his apex of dominance. His 17 strikeouts are a postseason record that still stands, and it was in a duel with Denny McLain, who is likely to be the last 30-game winner in MLB history.

We can also add an honorable mention to Jack Morris’ 10-inning shutout in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

And that pretty much ends the postseason competition for Ohtani. There have been some incredible, clutch offensive performances, but the basic nature of baseball makes it hard to surpass the greatest pitching performances as a hitter. Unless you happen to be doing both at the same time, like Ohtani just did.

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Rick Wise’s 2-HR no-hitter

Moving onto the regular season, we have the one guy who can probably say he did more for his team in a game than Ohtani did for the Dodgers in Game 4.

Two days ago, the question “What would you rather your pitcher do, hit three homers and throw six scoreless innings or hit two homers while throwing a no-hitter?” would sound ludicrous. It’s now very real, as Wise did the latter against the Cincinnati Reds in their Big Red Machine era.

The Philadelphia Phillies right-hander posted only three strikeouts on the mound, but a no-hitter is a no-hitter. There have actually been four no-hitters with a home run, but Wise is the only one to go deep multiple times.

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So that can go on the vision board for Ohtani.

That other Shohei Ohtani game

Remember last year, when Ohtani hit three home runs and stole two bases to not only become the first 50-50 player in MLB history, but reach 51-51 in the same game? Isn’t it wild how he seems to have one-upped that?

In total, Ohtani went 6-for-6 with 3 homers, 2 doubles, 2 steals, 4 runs scored and 10 RBI. Had he successfully stretched a double into a triple in the third inning, it would also have been a cycle. Obviously, hitting and pitching at an elite level is the most impressive thing Ohtani does, but it can’t be forgotten that he just decided to start stealing bases in 2024 and ended up doing this:

Other regular-season records

For the remaining games, take your pick.

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There have been 21 four-homer games, four 20-strikeout games (five if you count Randy Johnson, which you probably should in this case) and 21 perfect games. Some of those that stand out:

• Max Scherzer’s 17-strikeout no-hitter, the second-highest game score on record

• Koufax and Matt Cain each reaching 14 strikeouts in their perfect games, the most ever in a perfecto

As far as we can tell, that is pretty much the full list of games that could be considered alongside Ohtani.

Your definition of greatness is ultimately up to you. If you care about pure achievement, you might take Larsen. If you care about personal narrative, you might take Koufax. If you care about numbers going up more than the postseason, any of the above games could be your pick.

But to combine it all in a two-way spectacle beyond precedent, to send his team to the World Series, when baseball has never been played at a higher level, well, it makes a convincing case that we just watched the greatest day at the office in the history of the sport.

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  Bradford DoolittleOct 18, 2025, 03:45 PM ET

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  • MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com
  • Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com
  • Been with ESPN since 2013

Let’s ignore the fact that the 2025 MLB playoffs began on the last day of September and might end on the first day of November — because it’s always October when it comes to playoff baseball — and ask this: Who is this year’s Mr. October?

We last checked in after the LDS round, and things have changed, not the least of which is that we’re now down to the last three teams still vying for a World Series crown. Our leader last time was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki and while that’s no longer the case, Los Angeles’ collective playoff blitz still paints the leaderboard a vivid Dodger Blue.

At least that’s the answer through the rubric of Win Probability Added (WPA, a metric that’s been around for a while now and has a lot of utility in putting numbers to the narratives that emerge as the October bracket plays out.)

Between Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented performance in the Dodgers’ Game 4 win to close out the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series and the ongoing dominance of the L.A. rotation, led by Blake Snell, this WPA exercise has a chance to reverberate beyond the crucible of this one postseason. There is potentially historic stuff happening. Let’s dig in.

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Methodology | Top 5 | WPA hero of the day
Top 10 for eliminated players | Ohtani tracker | The all-time WPA champs

Methodology

The way WPA works is that play-by-play during a game, if you do something that improves your team’s chances to win, you get a positive credit. If you don’t, it’s a negative. In small samples, one play can have an outsized effect on WPA. A grand slam in a 10-0 game? Great for your stat line, but the blast does little to change the game’s outcome. Hit the same homer with your team down 3-0 in the eighth, and you’ve made some history. Because of that, there is a bias toward players who end up in a lot of close games — but only if they come through.

All we’ve done here is to marry the hitting and pitching versions of WPA together based on the version of the system at Baseball-Reference.com. Why add pitching and hitting WPA together in 2025, the era of the universal DH?

Well, you know why — Mr. Ohtani — and it was his historic debut as a two-way postseason player this season that inspired us to watch the WPA results a little more closely this October. Ohtani had been pretty quiet during this postseason, but his epic Game 4 against the Brewers shows why we wanted to track this.

Top 5 alive

Best postseason WPAs from players on teams still playing

1. Blake Snell, Dodgers | 1.203

Snell’s .622 WPA showing from his Game 1 masterpiece against Milwaukee is easily the best score from any player so far this postseason. Whereas Ohtani’s two-way brilliance in the clincher of that series came in a mostly one-sided game, Snell’s 90 game score over eight innings was posted in a more intense context.

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That game was scoreless until Freddie Freeman’s sixth-inning homer, and the Dodgers didn’t tack on the second run of their eventual 2-1 win until the ninth, after Snell departed. And it was only when that happened that Milwaukee was finally able to crack the scoreboard. Snell was not just brilliant, but he was brilliant in a game that allowed for no margin for error. WPA loved it.

Snell has been lights-out in all three of his playoff starts and the 1.203 WPA he has rolled up already ranks in the top 30 all time among postseason pitchers. If Snell gets two starts in the World Series and approaches the .401 WPA per game he has averaged so far, he’s going to crack the WPA pantheon, and if the games in the Fall Classic are close, he might end up leading the way.

2. Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners | .800

Raleigh was already having a great postseason, but his eighth-inning, game-tying homer off Toronto reliever Brendon Little was the kind of game-turning event (.320 WPA all by itself) that flips a leaderboard. It wasn’t quite enough to overcome Ohtani for the WPA crown for the night, but it did put Raleigh in position to win Mr. October if Seattle keeps advancing.

3. Alex Vesia, Dodgers | .708

Vesia has strung together six straight scoreless outings, all in close Dodgers wins. The outings have yielded four holds and two wins. Vesia has been understandably overshadowed by what some of his teammates have been doing, but he has played a key role in Los Angeles’ playoff spree.

4. Andres Munoz, Mariners | .704

Not all of Munoz’s outings have been high-leverage, but they’ve all been virtually spotless. Over six outings, Munoz has posted 7â…“ scoreless and hitless innings.

5. Roki Sasaki, Dodgers | .686

Sasaki’s shaky Game 1 outing in relief of Snell against Milwaukee cost him a little ground in the series by WPA. But he has posted two clean outings subsequent to that, and as long as he’s finishing close games, he can climb on this leaderboard.

Next five: 6. Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers (.596); 7. Nathan Lukes, Toronto Blue Jays (.506); 8. Bryce Miller, Mariners (.478); 9. Eduard Bazardo, Mariners (.467); 10. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Blue Jays (.462)

About last night

Golden Guy: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers (.349)

Alas, WPA doesn’t really capture the full breadth of what we saw Ohtani do as the Dodgers swept the Brewers out of the NLCS. The .349 is impressive but because the Dodgers jumped to an early 3-0 lead (aided by Ohtani’s first homer to begin the onslaught), the rest of the game had limited leverage potential. Besides, there’s not one number that can fully do justice to what Ohtani did. It’s all of the numbers.

Three homers? It’s been done in the postseason, 12 other times in fact before Ohtani. Babe Ruth — Ohtani’s most common historical comparison — did it twice. But none of those previous instances were done by a game’s starting pitcher. And even if you want to get technical and point out that Ohtani’s third homer came after he had shifted to DH, well, no pitcher had homered even twice in a postseason game.

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Ruth never homered in a World Series game in which he pitched. He owns the third-lowest career postseason ERA (0.87) among pitchers who have made at least three starts. But none of his amazing World Series outings as a pitcher also featured anything close to what Ohtani did with the bat against Milwaukee.

Ten whiffs? A 75 game score, which Ohtani earned in Game 4? Sure, many pitchers have exceeded those numbers in a postseason game. But none of them also hit three homers. In fact: No one had ever hit three homers while striking out 10 batters in the same game, period. Postseason, regular season, any season.

More than anything, the awe with which we watched Ohtani on Friday wasn’t just what he did, but how he did it.

According to the timestamps in Statcast’s play log, Ohtani struck out William Contreras swinging for this third straight whiff in the first inning at 7:45:18 p.m. PT. He then stomped off the mound, threw on his batting helmet and grabbed a bat, then hit a 446-foot homer at 116.5 mph off the bat against Jose Quintana at 7:50:05 p.m. — less than five minutes later. How is that possible?

Well, how is it possible that he struck out Jake Bauer on a splitter at 8:49:47 p.m. then, seven minutes later, hit a 469-foot bomb over the roof at Dodger Stadium against Chad Patrick? Or that, after finishing up his six standout innings on the mound, he then hit one out to center off Trevor Megill? Three homers off three different pitchers. Three homers during a six-inning start in which he allowed two hits. Who does that?

How is it possible that the same player who threw the 11 fastest pitches of the game — and the only two over 100 mph — also recorded the game’s three hardest hit balls, all at 113 mph or more? It’s not just that no one had ever done what Ohtani did on Friday. It’s arguable that no one else has even been capable of doing all those things in the same game. And oh yeah: That game happened to put his team back in the World Series.

There’s no one number that proclaims Ohtani’s Game 4 performance as the best single-game showing in baseball history. But if you want to make that argument, I for one am not going to stand in your way.

Good while they lasted

Top 10 postseason WPAs from players on eliminated teams

1. Will Vest, Detroit Tigers | .848

2. Tarik Skubal, Tigers | .609

3. Kerry Carpenter, Tigers | .591

4. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees | .579

5. Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians | .482

6. Keider Montero, Tigers | .441

7. Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers | .362

8. Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies | .349

9. Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox | .348

10. Cam Schlittler, Yankees | .314

Ohtani tracker

Since Ohtani inspired all of this, we should keep tabs on his WPA progress.

Through the NLCS:

Hitting WPA: minus-.062

Pitching WPA: .109

Overall WPA: .047 (98th of 284 players this postseason)

Ohtani jumped from 277th to 98th on Friday night. Let’s cross our fingers for two Ohtani starts in the Fall Classic.

The WPA pantheon

Top 10 single-season postseason WPAs since 1903

Note: It’s a big time frame, but the cumulative nature of the leaderboard heavily favors the recent decades when there have been more playoff rounds.

1. David Freese, 2011 St. Louis Cardinals | 1.908

2. David Ortiz, 2004 Red Sox | 1.892

3. Curt Schilling, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks | 1.748

4. Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Yankees | 1.704

5. Yordan Alvarez, 2022 Houston Astros | 1.646

6. Carlos Beltran, 2013 Cardinals | 1.582

7. Bernie Williams, 1996 Yankees | 1.545

8. John Wetteland, 1996 Yankees | 1.522

9. Eric Hosmer, 2014 Kansas City Royals | 1.443

10. Mariano Rivera, 2003 Yankees | 1.420

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Snell’s total at the end of the NLCS puts him in range of this select group. With two more outings in the World Series like his start in Milwaukee — in tight games — it’s conceivable he could challenge Freese for the all-time Mr. October throne. It’s a long shot, but either way, this has been an amazing run for Snell.

As for Ohtani, here are the four instances in which a player posted at least .200 WPA on both the hitting and pitching sides during the same postseason. This is the list we thought Ohtani might join. He has some work to do to get there, but at least we know that if he doesn’t do it, in 2025 baseball, no one else will.

• Christy Mathewson, 1913 New York Giants (1.054 WPA | .447 hitting; .607 pitching)

• Rube Foster, 1915 Red Sox (.883 WPA | .303 hitting; .580 pitching)

• Babe Ruth, 1918 Red Sox (.710 WPA | .209 hitting; .501 pitching)

• General Crowder, 1935 Tigers (.923 WPA | .207 hitting; .716 pitching)

• Jake Arrieta, 2016 Chicago Cubs (.480 WPA | .218 hitting; .262 pitching)

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Oct 18, 2025, 09:15 AM ET

Shohei Ohtani put the exclamation point of exclamation points on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS, striking out 10 in six shutout innings on the mound and blasting three home runs at the plate in Friday’s Game 4.

The Dodgers will face the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series.

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The Mariners, behind a game-tying solo home run from Cal Raleigh and a grand slam by Eugenio Suarez slam during a five-run eighth inning, knocked off the Blue Jays in Game 5 on Friday to take a 3-2 lead in the ALCS. It was the first win by the home team in the series.

Game 6 is Sunday in Toronto. The Blue Jays would host a Game 7 on Monday if they can extend the series.

For more on the MLB playoffs, check out live MLB playoff analysis and updates, as well as each team’s odds to win the World Series.

Odds as of publish time. For more, visit ESPN BET Sportsbook.

Cal Raleigh’s fourth home run of the playoffs evened the score in Friday’s Game 5. Steph Chambers/Getty Images

ALCS

Seattle Mariners vs. Toronto Blue Jays

Game 6: Sunday, 8:03 p.m. ET (FS1)

• Starters: TBD vs. Trey Yesavage

• Money line: Blue Jays -125, Mariners +105

• Spread: Blue Jays -1.5 (+170), Mariners +1.5 (-215)

• Run total: 7.5 (Over -105, Under -115)

Game 7*: Monday, 8:08 p.m. ET (FOX/FS1)
*If necessary

Game 1: Mariners 3, Blue Jays 1
Game 2: Mariners 10, Blue Jays 3
Game 3:Blue Jays 13, Mariners 4
Game 4: Blue Jays 8, Mariners 2
Game 5: Mariners 6, Blue Jays 2

NLCS

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Milwaukee Brewers

Dodgers win series, 4-0

Game 1: Dodgers 2, Brewers 1
Game 2: Dodgers 5, Brewers 1
Game 3: Dodgers 3, Brewers 1
Game 4: Dodgers, 5, Brewers 1

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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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The 2025 MLB postseason is in full swing. After a thrilling Wild Card round and a Division Series round which included an instant classic between the Mariners and the Tigers, the road to the 2025 MLB World Series continues. How inevitable are the Dodgers, exactly? Weâ€re about to find out.

Below is everything you need to know about the 2025 MLB postseason schedule and format.

Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani at the top? Our early 2026 Top 300 rankings highlight key fantasy storylines heading into the MLB offseason.

When is the 2025 World Series?

The 2025 World Series is scheduled to begin on Friday October 24, and would go through Saturday November 1 if the series goes seven games.

âš¾ï¸ Who is the favorite to win the 2025 World Series?

Per DraftKings (as of Saturday, October 18):

• Dodgers -185
• Mariners +215
• Blue Jays +850

Who Has Home-Field Advantage For the 2025 World Series?

Home-field advantage goes to the team with the best record. If the teams have the same record, home-field advantage will be determined by tiebreakers.

The Brewers finished the regular season with the best record in baseball at 97-65. However, since they were eliminated by the Dodgers during the NLCS, home-field advantage for the World Series is up for grabs.

If the Mariners (90-72) win the American League pennant, the Dodgers (93-69) would have home-field advantage. If the Blue Jays (94-68) come back to beat the Mariners, they would have home-field over the Dodgers.

What is the 2025 MLB Postseason Schedule?

âš¾ Championship Series: October 12-21

(ALCS airing on TBS, truTV and HBO Max; NLCS airing on FOX, FS1, and FOX Deportes: Game times are TBA)

*if necessary

Date

Matchup

10/12/25

Mariners at Blue Jays (ALCS Game 1)

SEA 3, DET 1

10/13/25

Mariners at Blue Jays (ALCS Game 2)

SEA 10, DET 3

Dodgers at Brewers (NCLS Game 1)

LAD 2, MIL 1

10/14/25

Dodgers at Brewers (NCLS Game 2))

LAD 5, MIL 1

10/15/25

Blue Jays at Mariners (ALCS Game 3)

TOR 13, SEA 4

10/16/25

Brewers at Dodgers (NLCS Game 3)

LAD 3, MIL 1

Blue Jays at Mariners (ALCS Game 4)

TOR 8, SEA 2

10/17/25

Blue Jays at Mariners (ALCS Game 5)

SEA 6, TOR 2

Brewers at Dodgers (NLCS Game 4)

LAD 5, MIL 1

10/19/25

Mariners at Blue Jays (ALCS Game 6)

8:03 p.m. ET

10/20/25

Mariners at Blue Jays (ALCS Game 7)*

8:08 p.m. ET

âš¾ 2025 World Series: October 24-November 1

(World Series airing on FOX: Game times are TBA)

*if necessary

Date

Series

Matchup

10/24/25

World Series, Game 1

League Champ #2 at League Champ #1

10/25/25

World Series, Game 2

League Champ #2 at League Champ #1

10/27/25

World Series, Game 3

League Champ #1 at League Champ #2

10/28/25

World Series, Game 4

League Champ #1 at League Champ #2

10/29/25

World Series, Game 5 *

League Champ #1 at League Champ #2

10/31/25

World Series, Game 6 *

League Champ #2 at League Champ #1

11/1/25

World Series, Game 7 *

League Champ #2 at League Champ #1

2025 MLB Playoff Rules

What Are The Replay Rules for the 2025 MLB Playoffs?

Managers get just one challenge during the regular season, but they are afforded two challenges in the postseason. If a challenge is successful, the manager keeps their challenge; they lose one of their challenges if the original call is confirmed. From the eighth inning onward, the crew chief can still review certain calls if a team has exhausted their challenges.

Will the Runner-on-Second Rule Apply in Extra Innings During the 2025 MLB Playoffs?

No. As opposed the regular season, the bases will be empty to begin extra innings and the game will be played under those circumstances until completion.

Can MLB Teams Replace Injured Players During the Playoffs?

Yes. Teams can replace an injured player during a series, but that player will be deemed ineligible for the remainder of the series and the following round should the team advance.

Additionally, a pitcher may only be replaced by another pitcher and a position player may only be replaced by another position player.

MLB Postseason Roster Eligibility Rules Explained

Any player on the 40-man roster or injured list as of noon ET on September 1 is eligible for the postseason. Players who were in the organization (and not on the 40-man roster) by that deadline may also replace someone on the 10-day or 60-day injured list, provided the injured player has served the minimum required time (10 days for the 10-day IL, 60 days for the 60-day IL). The substitute must also be added to the 40-man roster before joining the postseason roster.

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LOS ANGELES — It’s easy to take Shohei Ohtani for granted. By now, we’ve settled into the rote comfort: He is the best player on the planet, and that’s that. Ohtani’s baseline is everyone else’s peak. He is judged against himself and himself only.

And it’s human nature that when we watch something often enough — even something as mind-bending as a player who’s a full-time starting pitcher and full-time hitter and among the very best at both — it starts to register as normal.

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Which is why his performances on Friday — the unleashing of the full extent of Ohtani’s magic — was the sort of necessary reminder that one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now, doing unfathomable things, redefining the game in real time. And that even when he starts the day mired in an uncharacteristic slump, Ohtani needs only a single game to launch himself into the annals of history.

Where Ohtani’s performance in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series ranks on the all-time list of games will be debated for years. In the celebration following Los Angeles’ 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, though, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stood on the field and said, “That’s the greatest night in baseball history,” and no one cared to argue.

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Over the course of 2 hours, 41 minutes, in front of 52,883 fans, with millions watching domestically and tens of millions more in Japan, Ohtani threw six shutout innings and struck out 10 in between hitting three home runs that traveled a combined 1,342 feet, including one that left Dodger Stadium entirely. It was the sort of game that happens in comic books, not real life — and it was a game that completed a championship series sweep and sent Los Angeles to its second consecutive World Series. It was the kind of night that leaves patrons elated they saw it and also just a little ruined because they know they’ll never see anything like it again. Everyone was a prisoner, captive to perhaps the greatest individual game in the quarter-million or so played over the last century and a half.

It was, at very least, one of the finest displays of baseball since the game’s inception, up there with Tony Cloninger hitting two grand slams and throwing a complete game in 1966 or Rick Wise socking two home runs amid his no-hitter on the mound in 1971. And unlike those, this came in the postseason, and in a game to clinch Los Angeles the opportunity to become the first team in a quarter-century to win back-to-back championships.

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It wasn’t quite Don Larsen throwing a perfect game — but Larsen went 0-for-2 in that game and needed a Mickey Mantle home run to account for his scoring. It wasn’t Reggie Jackson hammering three home runs, either — because Reggie needed Mike Torrez to throw a complete game that night to make his blasts stand up.

Ohtani is the only player who can do this, the offense and the defense — the mastery of baseball, the distillation of talent into something pure and perfect.

Hours earlier, his day had started by navigating the tricky balance of starting and hitting on the same day. His metronomic routine, such a vital piece of his three MVP seasons (the fourth will be made official in mid-November), is upended completely when he pitches. He budgets for the extra time he needs to spend caring for his arm by sacrificing his attendance at the hitters’ meeting, instead getting the intel he needs from coaches in the batting cage about an hour before the game.

Nobody could tell, when Ohtani arrived in the underground cage Friday, that he was mired in a nasty slump that had stretched from the division series through the third game of the NLCS, a jag of strikeouts and soft contact and poor swing decisions and utter frustration that got so bad earlier in the week he had taken batting practice outside at Dodger Stadium, something he never — like, really, never — does. He had decided to do so on the plane ride back from Milwaukee, where the Dodgers had humbled the Brewers with the sort of starting pitching never seen in a league championship series.

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Game 4, his teammates were convinced, was going to be a culmination of that extra cage work and the matching of his pitching peers’ dominance.

“You guys asked me yesterday, and I said I was expecting nothing short of incredible today,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “And he proved me wrong. He went beyond incredible.”

After walking the leadoff hitter, Brice Turang, Ohtani struck out the next three hitters, popping a pair of 100 mph-plus fastballs and unleashing the most confounding version of his splitter seen all year. He followed by obliterating a slurve from Jose Quintana in the bottom of the inning for a home run, the first time a pitcher ever hit a leadoff homer in the game’s history, regular season or playoffs.

The strikeouts continued — one in the third inning, two more in the fourth, preceding Ohtani’s second home run, which left 50,000 mouths agape. In the stands, they cheered, and in the dugout, they whooped, and in the bullpen, they screamed: “The ball went out of the stadium!” Alex Vesia, the reliever who would come in after Ohtani struck out two more in the fifth and sixth innings, could not conceive that a person could hit a baseball in a game that far. Officially, it went 469 feet. It felt like 1,000.

“At that point, it’s got to be the greatest game ever, right?” said Vesia, who did his part to help keep it so. Ohtani allowed a walk and a hit in the seventh inning, and had Vesia allowed either run to score, the sparkling zero in his pitching line could’ve been an unsightly one or crooked two. When he induced a ground ball up the middle that nutmegged his legs, Mookie Betts was in perfect position to hoover it, step on second and fire to first for a double play that preserved Ohtani’s goose egg.

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In the next inning, Ohtani’s third home run of the night, and this one was just showing off: a shot to dead center off a 99 mph Trevor Megill fastball, a proper complement to the second off an 89 mph Chad Patrick cutter and the first off a 79 mph Quintana slurve). If it sounds impressive to hit three different pitches off three different pitchers for home runs in one night, it is. To do so throwing six innings, allowing two hits, walking three and striking out 10 is otherworldly.

“We were so focused on just winning the game, doing what needed to be done, I’m not sure we realized how good it really was,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “I didn’t really appreciate it until after. Like, he actually did that?”

Yes. Yes he did. In baseball history, 503 players have hit three home runs in a game, and 1,550 have struck out 10 or more in a game. None, until Friday, had done both. And that’s what Shohei Ohtani does, who he is. For eight years, he has transformed what is possible in baseball, set a truly impossible standard to match, and now, finally, having signed with a franchise capable of giving his talents the largest stage, Ohtani gets to perform when it matters most.

Milwaukee won more games during the regular season than anyone. Regardless of how impotent the Brewers’ offense was this series, they were a very good team, and the Dodgers flayed them. The final game was an exclamation point — and a warning for the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays, whichever survives the back-and-forth American League Championship Series.

Shohei Ohtani awaits. Good luck.

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