Shohei Ohtani’s pennant-clinching game against the Brewers was the greatest baseball performance of all time, and during Game 3 of the World Series, it wasn’t hard to talk yourself into the idea that you could be witnessing No. 2. Ohtani smashed the record for most times on base in a playoff game (previously six; now nine), and it was his power, and Toronto’s healthy fear of it, that can be blamed for so many people waking up bleary-eyed this morning—if they got any sleep at all. His night was not only one for the books; it’s changed the dynamic for the rest of the series.
Ohtani’s first hit proved his only harmless one: Leading off against Max Scherzer in the bottom of the first, he rocketed a ball that just barely stayed fair down into the right field corner, where it hopped over the short fence for a double. The next three Dodgers couldn’t drive him in, but facing Scherzer again in the third with a 1-0 lead, Shohei did it himself, smashing a high fastball much higher and farther to that very same corner.
