Ohtani

I don’t want to slight what the Mariners managed to do last night, but it’s hard not to be overshadowed by what is probably the greatest single game performance in the history of post-season baseball:

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.

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.

Unimaginable. Before Ohtani.

And remember that the Angels somehow managed to combine Ohtani with several years of near-peak Mike Trout and do absolutely fucking nothing.

Photo credit: By All-Pro Reels from District of Columbia, USA – Dodgers at Nationals, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152235533