The superstar’s first home run since August 18 gave Los Angeles a 4-0 lead, which lasted roughly as long as a Hollywood marriage, while Skubal, Yamamoto and Snell were lined up for Games 5, 6 and 7 that never happened
The Swing That Did Not Save The Season
LOS ANGELES. Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run homer in the second inning of NLCS Game 4, his first home run since August 18, to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead over the Milwaukee Brewers, according to MLB.com’s report on the Brewers winning the NLCS. It was a moment of enormous relief in Los Angeles, which had spent two months wondering whether the most famous player in baseball had misplaced his power somewhere between the All-Star break and the playoffs. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the Brewers then scored six unanswered runs, won 6-4 and completed a four-game sweep.
The result created an unusual situation: the greatest player in the world finally hit a home run, and it barely mattered. Baseball statisticians are already debating whether this counts as the most expensive consolation prize in the history of sport.
The Drought
Between August 18 and Game 4 of the NLCS, Ohtani had gone without a home run, a span that, for most players, would be an ordinary slump. For Ohtani, it was treated as a national emergency. Fans analysed his swing frame by frame. Television pundits drew lines on his bat path. Online forums debated whether he was injured, tired, distracted or simply bored of hitting home runs, having hit so many of them.
A sports bar owner in Little Tokyo said the drought had affected his business. Every time Ohtani came up, the whole bar went silent, he said. People stopped eating. People stopped drinking. Then he would hit a single, and they would sigh. A single! From Ohtani! It was like watching Picasso paint a fence. Very nice fence. But we wanted the masterpiece.
Relief, Briefly
When the ball left the park in the second inning, Dodger Stadium erupted. Fans who had been nervous all series stood and roared. Social media exploded with clips, captions and declarations that the King had returned. A fan in the reserve level said he was so excited he hugged a stranger. Then the stranger and I watched the Brewers come back, he said. By the sixth inning, we were not hugging anymore. We were just sitting next to each other in silence, like two people at a funeral who do not know the deceased that well.
The Rotation That Never Pitched
According to MLB.com, the Dodgers had Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell lined up to start Games 5 through 7. On paper, it was one of the most intimidating sequences of starting pitchers ever assembled for a postseason series. In reality, it became one of the most impressive collections of pitchers to never throw a pitch.
A baseball analyst at a Los Angeles radio station described it as the sporting equivalent of hiring three Michelin-starred chefs and then ordering pizza. You have the best arms in baseball warming up in your imagination, he said. You have the plan. You have the matchups. Then you lose four games in a row, and the plan goes into a drawer next to the three-peat parade route.
The Burden Of Greatness
Ohtani’s career has been defined by achievements that seemed impossible: elite hitting and pitching at the same time, records shattered, contracts signed that redefined the market. That level of greatness creates expectations that no one can meet every night. A sports psychologist in Pasadena said the drought was a reminder that even legends are human. Fans think a superstar should hit a home run every game, she said. If a normal player hits a home run every two weeks, it is a good season. If Ohtani goes two weeks, it is a crisis. If he goes two months, people start lighting candles.
The Dodgers’ Offseason Begins Early
For the Dodgers, the early exit means an unexpected stretch of free time in October, a month they have recently spent celebrating. Players who had cleared their calendars for a World Series now face something unfamiliar: the off-season. A Dodgers fan in Echo Park imagined how they might spend it. Ohtani will probably train, she said. Everybody else will probably train too. Everybody will train. They do not know how to relax. I want one of them to go to Disneyland and just eat a churro. That would be healthy.
Perspective
For all the anguish, it is worth remembering that the Dodgers had won two consecutive championships. Most franchises would trade a decade of results for that. A historian of the team noted that the Dodgers’ fan base, having enjoyed back-to-back titles, might be in danger of losing perspective. Twenty years ago, he said, Dodgers fans would have been thrilled with a pennant. Now they are devastated by a semi-final. That is what success does. It ruins you for normal life.
The Last Word
In the Dodgers clubhouse after the game, a reporter asked a clubhouse attendant how the mood was. Quiet, he said. Very quiet. Then he paused, holding a stack of unused champagne goggles that had been ordered just in case. What happens to those, the reporter asked. The attendant looked at the goggles for a long time. Next year, he said. They keep. Then he put them in a box, wrote Three-Peat, maybe 2027 on the side in marker and carried them down the hall.