Shohei Ohtani just had the best playoff game in MLB history

Shohei Ohtani had a great night, didn’t he?

Let’s put it more bluntly: Ohtani just had the greatest individual game in postseason history. On the mound, he pitched six scoreless innings, allowing two hits, walking three bases and striking out 10. He gave up two runners in a row in the top of the seventh inning and was pulled, which kind of messed up his route, which is ironic because that’s what the Dodgers offense has been doing to other starting pitchers the past two weeks.

On the plate: 3-on-3, walk. All of those hits were solo home runs: the first at 116.5 mph and 446 feet, the fourth at 116.9 mph and 469 feet, and the seventh at 113.6 mph and 427 feet from center. The second one, man, what a tank.

This is the perfect distillation of Ohtani’s value proposition. Considering the Dodgers defeated the Brewers 5-1 in Game 4 of the NLCS to clinch the pennant, any one of those games would be a memorable, almost legendary performance for Dodger fans. put together? Well, after that fourth-inning home run, I started asking this question a few paragraphs ago: Is this the best game in postseason history?

Obviously, this is only a real problem under certain definitions of “best.” Is this as good as Don Larson’s World Series perfect game? Jack Morris’ 10 shutout innings to win the 1991 World Series? Reggie Jackson won the 1977 World Series with three home runs? No, Ohtani’s night doesn’t guarantee a championship. But let’s use a more favorable definition: look at the game in isolation (at best using championship win probability as a tiebreaker) and give extra credit to players who contribute on both sides of the ball.

Ohtani was the first starting pitcher to hit two home runs in the postseason, but contrary to how people talk about him, he wasn’t the first to pick up a bat. His home run total of 12 set a new postseason record for a starting pitcher, but 19 starters before him hit one home run in the postseason (Bob Gibson and Dave McNally each hit two homers), and 25 starters (including Gibson and McNally) hit at least four home runs in the postseason.

I thought I’d pull back the curtain on the editing process here. I started writing in the second half of the fifth game. That last paragraph was before Ohtani’s third home run, which makes the question I’m trying to answer moot. Yes, this almost has to be the best individual performance in playoff history, unless championship leverage means everything.

Let’s see who else is talking so far.

Dutch Ruether holds the record for hits by a starting pitcher with seven, pitching 91 times in a game and allowing just one run. Even by Otani standards, that’s pretty impressive. Unfortunately, a year later the whole world knew that the match was being played under “complicated” circumstances, which took some of its luster away.

Jesse Hines actually got a game-long shutout against the Killer Street Yankees, even though he wasn’t quite as good as Ohtani. Still, he’ll get extra points based on difficulty. Here’s a fun bit of trivia: The opposing starting pitcher, the guy Haynes goes deep into? Dutch Reuther!

You could convince me that this was almost as good as Ohtani’s, just because Orel Hershiser had modern strikeout totals against tougher opponents in the World Series and didn’t get an out at the plate either. We don’t expect the Aces to go the distance again, but Ohtani did leave traffic on the bases after six innings, and a less snake-bitten offense than Milwaukee would wear out Ohtani’s zero runs.

I had never heard of Marius Russo before tonight, but he reached base three times in the entire World Series game and allowed just one run. It’s worth mentioning that while the 1943 Cardinals did have Stan Musial, Marty Marion and Harry Walker, that was during World War II, when many of the best major league players were at war.

Before tonight, I probably would have ranked this game as the best two-way performance in playoff history. It was a signature game from the iconic big-game pitcher of the mid-20th century. Gibson threw a complete game as is his custom. He was elevated to reliever eight innings in his first career postseason start and then made the final eight postseason starts of his career, all in the World Series. He also won every one of his starts until his final game, Game 7 of the 1968 World Series against the Tigers.

This time, Gibson allowed one run in Game 1, struck out 10 and pitched a buzzer-beater in Game 4, but his performance on the mound wasn’t exactly his best. This time, he shockingly dropped two points. But he got one back in the fifth with a buzzer-beater from Jim Lomberg.

I think the fact that this was Game 7 of the World Series gives Gibson’s start more weight, despite my earlier protests about the context. So did the fact that he hit a home run against that year’s American League Young Champion. But Gibson also allowed two runs and three outs at the plate, while Ohtani allowed zero outs and zero runs.

I think a diplomatic way to compare these two games, given the era and context, is to describe Ohtani’s Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS as a millennial version of Gibson’s Game 7 of the 1967 World Series. The latter is one of the most legendary individual plays in baseball, if not North American sports history.

How good was Ohtani tonight? That’s good.