Shohei Ohtani's legendary three-homer, 10-strikeout game sends Dodgers back to the World Series

The roar inside Dodger Stadium didn’t fade. It never could. Not after what they had just witnessed — something no one had ever seen, and maybe never will again. It was disbelief that turned to awe, awe that turned to joy, and joy that turned into pure pandemonium.

Because on this October night in Chavez Ravine, under the bright lights and endless California sky, Shohei Ohtani authored a masterpiece — one that will live forever in baseball history.

For the rest of time, they will call it, The Shohei Ohtani Game.

Shohei Ohtani hit three homers and struck out ten, as he led the Los Angeles Dodgers past the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-1, in Game 4 of the NLCS, in a legendary performance that sent them back to the World Series.

“That was the greatest postseason performance of all time. There’s been a lot of postseason games. And there’s a reason why he’s the greatest player on the planet,” said Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts of his superstar. “What he did on the mound, what he did at the bat, he created a lot of memories for a lot of people. So for us to have a game-clinching — to do it in a game-clinching game at home, wins the NLCS MVP, pretty special. I’m just happy to be able to go along for the ride.”

For six innings, Ohtani was untouchable. His fastball sizzled at 99 mph, his splitter dropped like it was falling off a cliff, and the Milwaukee Brewers could do nothing but chase shadows. Ten strikeouts. Two hits. Six scoreless innings. A performance that alone would’ve made this night legendary.

But that was only half of it.

In the bottom of the first, with the crowd still buzzing from watching him strike out the side in the top half, Ohtani dug into the batter’s box — and unleashed a thunderclap. The ball soared 446 feet into the night, halfway to the moon, and landed deep in the right-center bleachers. The Dodgers led 1–0, and Ohtani had already done something no pitcher had ever done in postseason history: hit a leadoff home run.

Dodger Stadium shook.

“The last couple days I felt pretty good at the plate,” said Ohtani through a translator. “There were times during the postseason where Teo [Teoscar Hernandez] and Mookie [Betts] picked me up. And this time around it was my turn to be able to perform.”

Los Angeles would plate two more on an RBI single from Tommy Edman, his third of the series, and a fielder’s choice RBI for Teoscar Hernandez. 

Milwaukee never recovered. Ohtani carved through them like a man possessed, striking out five of the next seven hitters he faced. When he returned to the plate in the fourth inning, fans were still buzzing from his first homer — and then he hit another.

Only this time, it didn’t just leave the yard. It left the stadium.

A 469-foot moonshot, disappearing over the roof of the right-field pavilion and out into centerfield plaza. The third-longest home run in Dodger Stadium history–and Ohtani now has two of them–security guards and fans out in the plaza reportedly saw the ball land in a bush and didn’t know what happened.

“How far he hit that ball surprised me. He hit it beyond the roof!” said Roberts, still in awe of it all. “This is just a performance that I’ve just never seen. No one’s ever seen something like this.”

Even the fans had never seen anything like it.

“I’ve been coming here for 40 years,” said one longtime season-ticket holder, wiping tears from his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Never.”

By the seventh inning, with the Dodgers comfortably ahead 4–0, Ohtani came up again. Fans stood before the first pitch. They chanted “MVP!” They sensed it. They felt it in the air, like the way you feel a storm building.

And when the ball left his bat again — that sweet, familiar sound — there was only one thing to do. Stand and watch.

Home run number three.

“I sensed it,” said Roberts. “I wasn’t surprised by the third one. I would have been surprised if he didn’t homer.”

The dugout went crazy. The stadium quaked. The scoreboard lit up like it had a pulse.

Ohtani circled the bases quietly, almost humbly, his face calm beneath the fireworks bursting overhead.

Special doesn’t even begin to describe it.

When it was over, the Dodgers had won 5–1 — sweeping the Brewers in four games and punching their ticket to the World Series for the second straight year. The pitching staff, almost forgotten amidst Ohtani’s brilliance, allowed just four runs in the entire series.

But the night belonged to one man.

The first pitcher ever to hit a leadoff homer in postseason history.

The first player ever to hit three home runs and strike out ten in the same game — postseason or regular season.

The first player to make the impossible seem ordinary.

“We’re like the [Chicago] Bulls, and he’s Michael Jordan,” said teammate Mookie Betts of Ohtani.

Out on the field, Ohtani embraced his teammates on the mound, as they received the National League pennant trophy. The crowd chanted his name — “Sho-hei, Sho-hei, Sho-hei” — long after the final out.

Inside the Dodgers’ clubhouse, champagne corks popped, laughter filled the air, and yet somehow, everyone knew what they’d just seen wasn’t just a win. It was history.

“We’ll never see anything like this in my lifetime,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “He’s one of one.”

The only sound left when it was over came from the Dodgers’ dugout — from 26 grown men who, for one night, were all little boys again, celebrating baseball’s rarest magic. Out beyond them, the city glowed, the hills shimmered, and the echoes of what Shohei Ohtani did tonight seemed to hang over the ravine like a halo.

Because someday, when fans tell their children about the greatest baseball player that ever played the game, they will talk about October 17, 2025 — the night the unicorn became a legend.

The night baseball belonged to Shohei Ohtani.

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