LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani propelled the Los Angeles Dodgers back to the World Series with a two-way performance for the ages.
The 31-year-old Japanese star hit three mammoth home runs and struck out 10 batters while pitching shutout ball into the seventh inning, and the third-seeded Dodgers swept the top-seeded Milwaukee Brewers out of the National League Championship Series with a 5-1 victory in Game 4 on Friday night.
“That was probably the greatest postseason performance of all time,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. “There’s been a lot of postseason games. And there’s a reason why he’s the greatest player on the planet.”
The Dodgers will have a chance to become Major League Baseball’s first repeat champions in a quarter-century after this mind-blowing night for the three-time league MVP, who emphatically ended what had been a quiet personal performance in the postseason by his lofty standards.
Ohtani was selected the NLCS MVP essentially on the strength of this one unforgettable game.
“This time around it was my turn to be able to perform,” he said through his interpreter.
After striking out three batters in the top of the first inning, Ohtani hit the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in MLB history off Brewers starter Jose Quintana.
Ohtani followed with a 469-foot drive in the fourth, clearing a pavilion roof in right-center.
He added a third solo shot in the seventh, becoming the 12th MLB player to hit three homers in a postseason game. His three homers traveled a combined 1,342 feet.
Ohtani also thoroughly dominated the Brewers in his second career postseason start on the mound, allowing just two hits during his first double-digit strikeout game in a Dodgers uniform. He didn’t give up a hit until the fourth, and he fanned two Brewers in the fourth, fifth and sixth.
“Sometimes you’ve got to check yourself and touch him to make sure he’s not just made of steel,” said Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, last season’s World Series MVP. “Absolutely incredible. Biggest stage, and he goes out and does something like that. It’ll probably be remembered as the Shohei Ohtani game.”
After the Brewers’ first two batters reached in the seventh, Ohtani left the mound to a stadium-shaking ovation — and after Alex Vesia escaped the jam, Ohtani celebrated by hitting his third homer in the bottom half.
The powerhouse Dodgers are the first team to win back-to-back pennants since the Philadelphia Phillies repeated as NL champions in 2009. Los Angeles is back in the World Series for the fifth time in nine seasons, and it will attempt to become MLB’s first repeat champion since the New York Yankees won three straight World Series from 1998 to 2000.
“That was special,” Freeman said. “We’ve just been playing really good baseball for a while now, and the inevitable kind of happened today: Shohei. Oh my God. I’m still speechless.”
AP photo by Mark J. Terrill / Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani celebrates at the end of the top of the third inning during Game 4 of the NL Championship Series against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night.
After a 9-1 rampage so far this postseason — they swept their best-of-three NL Wild Card Series against the sixth-seeded Cincinnati Reds, then ousted the second-seeded Phillies in four games in their best-of-five NL Division Series — the Dodgers are headed to the World Series for the 23rd time in franchise history, including 14 pennants won since moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles ahead of the 1958 season.
Only the Yankees, last year’s opponent, have made more appearances in the Fall Classic, getting their 41 times and winning a record 27 titles.
Los Angeles, seeking its ninth MLB title, will have a week off before the World Series begins next Friday against the American League champion.
The second-seeded Seattle Mariners won 6-2 at home against the top-seeded Toronto Blue Jays earlier Friday to take a 3-2 lead in the ALCS. Game 6 is Sunday at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, which would also host Game 7 on Monday, if necessary.
AL East Division champion Toronto went 94-68 during the regular season, while AL West champ Seattle went 90-72. The Dodgers, the NL West winners, were 93-69, which means they would have home-field advantage over the Mariners but not the Blue Jays, so Game 1 of the World Series will take place in either Los Angeles or Toronto.
The Dodgers had never swept an NLCS in 16 previous appearances, but they became only the fifth team to sweep this series while thoroughly dominating NL Central champion Milwaukee, which led the major leagues with 97 wins during the regular season. Los Angeles is the first team to sweep a best-of-seven postseason series since 2022, and the first to sweep an NLCS since the 2019 Washington Nationals, who went on to win the World Series.
While the Brewers swept the Dodgers in their six regular-season meetings this year, Milwaukee entered the NLCS clinging tightly to the underdog identity manager Pat Murphy favored for his team. There was certainly a disparity between the towns the clubs call home — big-time Los Angeles versus blue-collar Milwaukee, MLB’s smallest market — and their payrolls, with the Dodgers’ projected luxury tax bill of nearly $168 million alone exceeding the Brewers’ entire payroll of $124.8 million.
The Dodgers are doing their best to at least make sure $509.5 million (their total in payroll and luxury tax) is money well spent.
“Before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” Roberts shouted to the crowd during the on-field celebration afterward. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball!”
The Brewers were eliminated by the Dodgers for the third time during their current stretch of seven playoff appearances in eight years. Even after setting a franchise record for wins this season, Milwaukee is still waiting for its first World Series appearance since 1982 and the first MLB title for a franchise that dates to 1969.
At the end of the night, Murphy couldn’t help but tip his hat to Ohtani, who joined the Dodgers with a record-breaking $700 million, 10-year deal ahead of the 2024 season. A two-way star back home in the Nippon Professional Baseball league even before coming to America in 2018, Ohtani spent his first six MLB seasons in nearby Anaheim with the Los Angeles Angels and won AL MVP awards in 2021 and 2023.
He stood out as both a pitcher and a hitter for the Angels, but he didn’t take the mound for the Dodgers until this year after having shoulder surgery in 2023. Not pitching last year didn’t stop him from winning his first NL MVP honor, and he’s considered the front-runner for another one based on his 2025 regular season.
And now he’s clearly found his form in the playoffs, too.
“We were part of tonight an iconic, maybe the best individual performance ever in a postseason game,” Murphy said. “I don’t think anybody can argue with that. A guy punches out 10 and hits three homers.”
The Brewers had never been swept in a playoff series longer than a best-of-three, but their bats fell silent in the NLCS against the Dodgers’ brilliant starting rotation. Los Angeles’ four starters combined to pitch 28 2/3 innings with two earned runs allowed and 35 strikeouts.
Milwaukee scored just one run in each game.
“I really think that to beat us four games in a row, you’ve got to do a lot of things right,” outfielder Blake Perkins said. “Some things had to go their way that didn’t go our way. We hit a lot of balls at people. But either way, Ohtani did great today. Is he the greatest player ever? I don’t know. But he sure seemed like it tonight.”
The Dodgers added two more runs in the first after Ohtani’s tone-setting homer, with Mookie Betts and Will Smith both singling and scoring.
Jackson Chourio doubled leading off the fourth for Milwaukee’s first hit, but Ohtani stranded him.
Struggling reliever Blake Treinen allowed two more Milwaukee baserunners in the eighth, and Caleb Durbin scored when Brice Turang beat out his potential double-play grounder before Anthony Banda ended the inning.
Roki Sasaki pitched the ninth in the latest successful relief outing for the Dodgers’ unlikely rookie closer.
The Brewers, who hadn’t lost four games in a row since dropping two each to the San Francisco Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals in late April, were headed home.
The Dodgers were already there, and assured of another opportunity to play on their own field this fall — but not before celebrating, and then regrouping before facing the final obstacle between themselves and a repeat.
“I do see it as a positive in terms of being able to rest, both as a position player and as a pitcher,” Ohtani said. “We’ve had some off days, but we’ve played some very meaningful games that were very stressful.”