Shohei-the-Kid Puts on a Really Big Show

As the 2025 World Series gets ready to begin this Friday, I would like to reflect on Shohei Ohtani’s incredible performance for the L.A. Dodgers in the pennant-clinching game on Friday night.

Quite simply it was the greatest performance by a single player ever in an MLB game. Period.

You can look it up.

The only other pitcher ever to hit three home runs in a game he was pitching occurred in May 1942. The pitcher was Jim Tobin of the Boston Red Sox. He pitched nine innings, allowed three runs and was credited with the win. He did not strike out a batter. It was a fabulous performance, but it occurred in a meaningless game in May during a time when baseball’s talent pool was being diluted by World War II.

Ohtani only pitched six innings, but they were scoreless innings in which he struck out a whopping ten Brewers. Ohtani was also perfect at the plate, 3 home runs and one base on balls. And Ohtani’s performance came in a crucial pennant-clinching game. There have been many brilliantly pitched games in crucial games but never by a pitcher who hit three home runs.

Ohtani is also the only player ever to hit three home runs in a pennant-clinching game or playoff-clinching game. As for the World Series, Babe Ruth did it twice, in game four 1926 and game four 1928. “Mr. October” Reggie Jackson performed his dramatic feat in game six 1977. But Ruth and Jackson’s historic slugging was accomplished while leisurely patrolling the pastoral confines of right field.

For Ohtani it was quite a show that along with millions of baseball fans I was thrilled to watch.