LOS ANGELES — For years, the baseball world has yearned to watch Shohei Ohtani on nights like these.
For years, he has changed what we thought was possible from a baseball talent. Last winter, he changed what was possible for himself, signing up not just for hundreds of millions but for a chance, at long last, at October.
The calendar has not quite flipped yet, but Ohtani has arrived. The Los Angeles Dodgers came to life Wednesday off the strength of his bat, twice taking a lead on a swing from their $700 million man and feeling every bit of life that came from it.
After the first, a two-out rocket off the wall for a double, Ohtani stretched his arms out in triumph. When he poked a two-strike, two-out single to give the Dodgers the lead for good, he unleashed a roar to a dugout on the verge of an annual celebration.
The Dodgers can pop bottles as soon as Thursday after a 4-3 win Wednesday. Win another over the San Diego Padres, and they’ll have won the NL West for the 11th time in 12 seasons. Ohtani sensed it.
Shohei knows clutch! pic.twitter.com/TgBbraVk2G
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 26, 2024
A night after losing in miserable fashion and bringing at least a hint of potential disaster, they righted the ship.
They can thank their otherworldly superstar, who is set to write the next chapter of his awe-inspiring first season with his new club.
“He has raised his level of play,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani, who has now reached base in 21 of his last 28 appearances, with five home runs and seven stolen bases in that span.
Ohtani is in the midst of one of the most prolific offensive displays of all time. Now, it’s coming with stakes. More than anything, he’s injected life into a group that needed it.
“We need it,” Roberts said. “I expect our guys to be emotionally exhausted, spent, every game now from now going forward. If they’re not, they’re not leaving enough out there. … It’s personal. It has to be personal. For us to win a championship, we have to have that mindset going forward.”
The Dodgers flirted with disaster again anyway. For the second time in two nights, they took a first-inning lead only to find themselves in an immediate hole. Jack Flaherty struggled to find his command and labored through five innings against a Padres lineup that produces more contact than any other in the sport. A dip in velocity had only furthered that margin.
When Flaherty left a two-out fastball up to Fernando Tatis Jr. in the fifth, the Padres slugger launched it halfway up the pavilion an estimated 448 feet from home plate to even the score.
It had taken until the fourth for the Dodgers offense to spring to life against Dylan Cease and take another one-run lead. Tommy Edman smacked a two-out double into the gap, coming across to score to make it a 2-2 game when Gavin Lux broke his 4-for-37 drought with a line drive that just snuck over Xander Bogaerts’ glove at shortstop for a single.
After a Miguel Rojas walk, Ohtani cut on the first pitch he saw. He froze at the plate as the rope left his bat at 116.8 mph and off the wall, racing around to second after breaking the tie.
Shohei for the lead! pic.twitter.com/ZJ7hmlhdFM
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 26, 2024
After Tatis’ blast tied the score again, Ohtani returned to the plate in the sixth. Again, with two on and two out. After seeing a pair of fastballs above the zone for called strikes, he waited out San Diego’s Adrian Morejon. When Morejon left another fastball over the outer half of the plate, he stroked it through the hole for another two-out run batted in, giving the Dodgers the lead for good.
The outpouring of emotion was notable, and emotional.
“You see the emotion that you never see and you’ve seen that over the last week,” Roberts said. “He’s sniffing the postseason and understanding how important these games are. … It fires us up. When your best player is playing with emotion, everyone follows.”
FIRE US UP, SHOHEI. pic.twitter.com/ekf7xv12sx
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 26, 2024
“You see that, and you get really excited,” Max Muncy said.
Ohtani has embraced his stage. For years, his every movement has been tracked and clocked by millions of eyeballs. Yet this stood out, even to him.
“There is some sense of elevation when it comes to playing these meaningful games,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
This is what Ohtani waited for. These are the swings the Dodgers were hopeful would come. And yet, for much of the season’s first few months, a small subplot developed underneath Ohtani’s flabbergasting offensive season. As of about a month ago, his OPS with runners in scoring position still sat at .696.
Course correction has followed. Ohtani captured the fastest 40-40 season ever with a walk-off grand slam. He drove in 10 runs in a game when he became the first player to 50-50. Entering Wednesday night, that OPS stat had gone up to .847.
The Dodgers have monitored closely as Ohtani approached his first October. Roberts noted weeks ago that, for the Dodgers to get to where they want to go, they would rely on Ohtani not carrying them, but taking what he could.
“He’s handling it exactly the way I would’ve hoped,” Roberts said. “This is a playoff environment. You can see they’re trying to crowd him and then spin him away and he’s just being patient waiting for his pitch and he’s doing something when he gets his chance.”
Wednesday showed just how much that could be. Thursday could bring even more.
“Just being able to do this, hopefully being able to celebrate in front of the home fans is something I am looking forward to,” Ohtani said.
Given the questions surrounding the Dodgers’ starting pitching, it’s a formula the Dodgers may have to count on to get anywhere in October. Get enough from Flaherty. Rely on their lineup depth. Get a dominant bullpen performance (four innings, no hits allowed).
And rely on one of the best talents the game has ever seen.
It’s worked so far.
“The fact is, we still have the best record in baseball,” Roberts said. “It might not feel like that, but … I could tell the intent tonight of what we were gonna get and that’s what we did. We came away with a big win.”
(Photo: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)
