What LA Dodgers pitcher and hitter did on Friday night was arguably the greatest baseball performance in a single game ever!
ESPN put it this way:
It’s easy to take Shohei Ohtani for granted. By now, we’ve settled into the rote comfort: He is the best player on the planet, and that’s that. Ohtani’s baseline is everyone else’s peak. He is judged against himself and himself only.
And it’s human nature that when we watch something often enough — even something as mind-bending as a player who’s a full-time starting pitcher and full-time hitter and among the very best at both — it starts to register as normal.
Which is why his performances on Friday — the unleashing of the full extent of Ohtani’s magic — was the sort of necessary reminder that one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now, doing unfathomable things, redefining the game in real time. And that even when he starts the day mired in an uncharacteristic slump, Ohtani needs only a single game to launch himself into the annals of history.
Where Ohtani’s performance in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series ranks on the all-time list of games will be debated for years. In the celebration following Los Angeles‘ 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, though, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stood on the field and said, “That’s the greatest night in baseball history,” and no one cared to argue.
Over the course of 2 hours, 41 minutes, in front of 52,883 fans, with millions watching domestically and tens of millions more in Japan, Ohtani threw six shutout innings and struck out 10 in between hitting three home runs that traveled a combined 1,342 feet, including one that left Dodger Stadium entirely. It was the sort of game that happens in comic books, not real life — and it was a game that completed a championship series sweep and sent Los Angeles to its second consecutive World Series. It was the kind of night that leaves patrons elated they saw it and also just a little ruined because they know they’ll never see anything like it again. Everyone was a prisoner, captive to perhaps the greatest individual game in the quarter-million or so played over the last century and a half.
His performance was the best ever on both sides of the plate. Here is Ohtani’s third home run.
Shohei Ohtani has officially put together the greatest athletic performance of our lifetime.
6 shutout innings, 10 strikeouts & 3 HRs
We’re watching the greatest baseball player of all-time
— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) October 18, 2025
Ohtani pitched 6 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and he was 3 for 3 batting – all home runs.
QUITE POSSIBLY THE GREATEST SINGLE GAME IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT.
SHOHEI OHTANI, YOU ARE THE MAN. pic.twitter.com/XsyfeeDwE8
— theScore (@theScore) October 18, 2025
No one ever did what Ohtani did -ever.
Major League Baseball has been around since 1876. Around 250,000 MLB games have been played.
And last night, Shohei Ohtani likely played the best game of all time. pic.twitter.com/VWFYtgFACF
— tyler hogge (@thogge) October 18, 2025
Wow this was incredible:
Shohei Ohtani’s 10 strikeouts and three home runs in chronological order pic.twitter.com/z51rA0zAx5
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 18, 2025