LOS ANGELES – There is a very good reason why the Dodgers-Padres NL Division Series will be playing in prime time in the East from start to finish, even with both New York teams still engaged in the postseason.
He wears No. 17, he has finally reached the playoffs in his seventh major league season, and it took him just two innings of Saturday night’s 7-5 Dodgers victory in Game 1 to make his presence known.
Or did you miss that dramatic bat toss in said second inning, after Shohei Ohtani turned on a 2-1 pitch from San Diego’s Dylan Cease and sent it screaming into the right field pavilion, wiping out a 3-0 Padres lead with one swing?
This is going to be an entertaining series for many different reasons, especially if Saturday night’s Game 1 is any indication.
It’s big brother vs. little brother, a big city glamor franchise vs. the only team left in its town with a fan base with a chip on its collective shoulder as wide as Mission Valley.
Plus, if you are lucky/unlucky enough to be in the ballpark and hear the speakers cranked up to 12, it’s an unofficial competition to determine who can produce the most noise. I’d give the Dodgers the edge because of a bigger ballpark, newer and more powerful speakers, and the echo effect in Chavez Ravine, which seems more effective than the buildings surrounding the Gaslamp Quarter and Petco Park.
(Although maybe the Dodgers are off their game a little bit in the ambiance department. My watch pinged only one “loud environment” warning Saturday night.)
But Shohei is the main attraction. He has been, for the Dodgers all year long and for the entire sport through August and September as his quest to join/launch the 50-50 club turned real.
I suggested, a couple of years ago when he was in the midst of an MVP season with the Angels as pitcher and hitter, that we all should have Shohei Alerts on our phones. The idea was that when he was due to come to the plate, the phone would buzz or ding with the message: Get to your TV, quick!
If you weren’t on the Dodger Stadium premises Saturday night, you probably could have used one.
Shohei’s first at-bat against Dylan Cease, against whom he was 4 for 15 lifetime with a double and two home runs, was a routine fly ball to lead off the bottom of the first, after Manny Machado – Dodger fans’ favorite villain – had smacked a towering three-run homer to give San Diego the lead.
Ohtani’s second at-bat? That’s the one that launched a ballpark full of clips and memes on social media.
On a 2-0 pitch, he fouled a 98 mph four-seamer off his right knee. He limped, and 50,000 people winced.
The next pitch was another four-seamer, 96.9 mph coming in … and 111.8 mph going out. It landed 372 feet away, in the first few rows of the right field pavilion, but it was enough of a no-doubter that Ohtani chucked his bat in the direction of the first base dugout. The subliminal message? This bat’s work is DONE.
Ohtani’s main job Saturday night seemed to be bailing out countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who gave up Machado’s homer in the first and Xander Bogaerts’ two-run double in the third.
Shohei came up in the fourth with men on first and second against reliever Adrian Morejon and hit a broken-bat looper that fell just in front of the glove of Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill to load the bases. It may not have inspired as many memes, but it kept the inning going; Morejon wild-pitched a run home, and after Mookie Betts was intentionally walked – with a 2-2 count, no less – and Freddie Freeman grounded into a force play at home, Teoscar Hernandez whacked a two-run single to give the Dodgers the lead.
Teoscar may not quite be the international superstar that Shohei is, but he’s been awfully important in this Dodgers season. Suggestion to the club: Find the money – it shouldn’t be that hard – and sign him to a new contract before he gets to free agency.
Ohtani had one more shot in the eighth against left-handed reliever Tanner Scott, against whom he was 1 for 9 coming into the evening. He struck out to make it 1 for 10 but you can’t say he got cheated, not with that big swing. Even when he doesn’t connect, it’s a thrill ride.
Ohtani probably had the highlight moment of the workout day Friday when, after being asked if he was nervous about his first postseason experience, he interrupted interpreter Will Ireton and blurted, “Nope,” in English.
“It’s always been my childhood dream to be able to be in an important situation, to play in important games,” he said then. “So I think the excitement of that is greater than anything else that I could possibly feel.”
Saturday night, he elaborated, or as much as Shohei ever elaborates.
Asked what his emotions were as he stepped to the plate the first time, he said, through Ireton: “The focus was really in my first at-bat to focus on just having my swing, the quality at-bat that I look for despite being in an excited high-intensity environment. And although I was out that at-bat, I felt pretty good and wanted to carry that on throughout the other at-bats.”
Later, asked how he flips the switch from excitement to calm, he said: “Nothing I did in particular … I was just really focused every single at-bat. If you were to ask me to look back on each at-bat, I would probably struggle to recall everything.”
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He shouldn’t be nervous. As manager Dave Roberts said last week, he’s played in important games in the World Baseball Classic – who can forget that game-ending strikeout of Mike Trout? – and he obviously is one of those who embraces the big moments, rather than running from them.
This came out in two ways Saturday: Flourishing in a playoff atmosphere, and succeeding in key situations. Ohtani was 2 for 3 with runners in scoring position Saturday, continuing a hot streak in those situations.
“It’s been insane how good he’s been with runners in scoring position,” Roberts said. “The key is to get those opportunities because, yeah, when he does get those opportunities you feel like he’s going to cash them in.
“He certainly has that switch, that focus that goes to excitement versus nerves and feeling pressure and trying too hard. You can even see it in his first at-bat, just the discipline in the strike zone, to get back into a count and then to fly out. But the big moments, I just really have never seen a guy in the biggest of moments come through as consistently as he has.
“We’ve obviously had a lot of good players,” he added. “But when you get a player like Shohei, who clearly embraces these moments and has the ability to carry a ballclub, I do think that there’s something to the alleviating the – I hate saying ‘pressure’ – but the pressure for other players.
“I think there’s something to having that superstar player that can carry a ballclub.”
Ohtani was already an incredible bargain, thanks to all of the deferred money in his $700 million deal. If he truly can carry this club where it wants to go, this might go down as the biggest steal in the history of free agency.
And if this is what we can expect from Big Game Shohei, this could be an awfully fun – and lengthy – October for Dodger fans.
jalexander@scng.com