Shohei Ohtani just had the best playoff game in Major League history

Shohei Ohtani He’s had a whole night, hasn’t he?

Let’s be more direct: Ohtani just had the best individual game in postseason history. On the mound, he pitched six scoreless innings, allowing two hits and three walks while striking out ten. He was pulled after giving up two baserunners in a row to start the seventh, which screwed up his line somewhat, which is ironic because that’s what the Dodgers’ offense has done to other starting pitchers over the past two weeks.

On the board: 3-for-3 with a walk. All of these hits were solo home runs: 186.5 mph off the bat and 446 feet in the first, 186.9 mph and 469 feet in the fourth, 183.6 mph and 427 feet to center in the seventh. That second one, man, what a tank.

This is the perfect distillation of the value proposition for Ohtani. Considering that this victory, 5-1 over the Brewers in NLCS Game 4, clinched the pennant for the Dodgers, any of these performances would have been memorable and almost legendary for Dodger fans. Put together? Well, after that fourth-inning home run, I started asking that question a few paragraphs back: Was this the best game in playoff history?

Of course, that’s only a real question according to certain definitions of “best.” This was as good as it was Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game? Jac Morris“10-inning shutout to win the 1991 World Series? Reggie Jackson’s three-homer game to win the 1977 World Series? No, as far as Ohtani’s night of nights doesn’t guarantee a championship. But let’s use a more favorable definition: look at the game in isolation (at best using the probability of winning the championship as a tiebreaker) and give extra credit to players who contribute on both sides of the ball.

Ohtani is the first starting pitcher to homer twice in a playoff game, but contrary to what is said about him, he is not the first pitcher to ever pick up a bat. His total of twelve bases at the plate is a new record for a starting pitcher in a playoff game, but 19 starting pitchers before him had homered once in a playoff game (Bob Gibson And Dave McNally did it twice each), and 25 starting pitchers (including Gibson and McNally) had reached at least four total bases in a playoff game.

I think I’ll pull back the curtain on the editorial process here. I started writing in the bottom of the fifth inning. That last paragraph is as far as I could get before Ohtani homered for the third time, calling into question the question I wanted to answer. Yes, this has to be pretty much the best individual performance in postseason history, unless championship influence means everything.

Let’s see who else has been in the conversation so far.

Dutch Ruther held the previous record for total bases by a starting pitcher with seven, and he did so in a game in which he threw a complete game of 91 pitches and allowed only one unearned run. That’s pretty impressive, even by Ohtani’s standards. Unfortunately, the world learned a year later that this game took place under, shall we say, “complicated” circumstances, which takes some of the shine off.

Jesse Haines actually achieved the complete game shutout, against the Murderer’s Row Yankees, no less, albeit with slightly less overwhelming stuff than Ohtani. Still, he gets extra points for the difficulty. Here’s a fun fact: the opposing starting pitcher, the guy who took Haines deep? Dutch Ruther!

You could convince me that this one is almost as good from Ohtani, just because Orel Hershiser had a modern strikeout total against a tougher opponent in the World Series, and also didn’t get to zero at the plate. We don’t expect aces to go the distance anymore, but Ohtani caused traffic on the bases after just six innings, and a less snakebit offense than Milwaukee’s would have ruined Ohtani’s run of outs.

I had never heard of it Marius Russo for tonight, but he reached base three times while allowing just one unearned run in a complete World Series game. It is worth noting that the cardinals of 1943 had done so Stan Musiaal, Marty MarionAnd Harry WalkerThis was during World War II, when many of the top league players were at war.

Before tonight, I probably would have picked this game as the best two-way performance in playoff history. This is the iconic play for the iconic big-game pitcher of the mid-20th century. Gibson threw a complete game, as was his custom; he was lifted for a reliever after eight innings in his first career playoff start, then completed the final eight postseason starts of his career, all in the World Series. Until his final appearance, Game 7 of the 1968 World Series against the Tigers, he also won every start he made.

On this occasion, Gibson, who had allowed one run and struck out ten in Game 1 and pitched a shutout in Game 4, wasn’t exactly his best on the mound. This time he gave up no fewer than two runs. But he got one back with a dinger in the fifth inning Jim Lonborg.

I think the fact that this was Game 7 of the World Series lends some weight to Gibson’s start, despite my earlier protests about the context. That includes the fact that his home run came against that year’s AL Cy Young winner. But Gibson also let in two runs and made three putouts at home, while Ohtani made zero putouts and allowed zero runs.

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

How good was Ohtani tonight? Fine.