LOS ANGELES — Had anyone chosen an unfortunate moment to blink, the sounds echoing around a nearly empty Dodger Stadium would have told the whole story.
An impossibly loud crack of the bat. Immediate exclamations of awe. A resounding thud as the ball clanged off metal. A clamor of voices all over again, capped by a jesting remark from Freddie Freeman: “You’ve got no pop!”
Then again, those in attendance for Wednesday’s National League Championship Series workout day would have been foolish to take their eyes off Shohei Ohtani, taking batting practice on the field at Dodger Stadium for the first time anyone could recall. He put on a sweeping power show, depositing ball after ball in the outfield seats, including a moonshot that hit off the top of the Right Field Pavilion roof.
“I think just looking back over the course of the entire postseason, I haven’t performed to the expectation,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Friday night. “But I think today we saw what the left-handed hitters could do.”
After Ohtani went 1-for-18 (.056) in the NL Division Series, manager Dave Roberts thought the performance said more about the Phillies’ gauntlet of left-handed pitching and some of the swing decisions he made than any potential mechanical issues. Roberts was encouraged by Ohtani’s at-bat quality in the first two games of the NLCS against the Brewers, but the two-way star still went just 1-for-7 (.143).
It was only Ohtani’s third span of six games with no more than two hits — and none for extra bases — in his Major League career. While on the team flight from Milwaukee to L.A., he sent a text to hitting coaches Aaron Bates and Robert Van Scoyoc expressing a desire to hit on the field.
Ohtani prefers to do most of his hitting work in the cage, a controlled environment where he can focus on minute details of his swing. Hitting on the field allowed him to change up his visuals. There’s something to being able to see some balls fall in the outfield grass — and in many cases, well beyond.
“Seeing the flight of the ball, seeing the ball back-spun and seeing what it’s doing [can be beneficial],” Roberts said. “Seeing it land on the roof in right field, that’s certainly not a bad thing.”
Perhaps more importantly, Ohtani’s change in routine was born of the urgency of getting right quickly — but without letting the pressure of meeting the moment wear on him.
“I think he was trying to change up his routine more so than putting the moment on the pedestal,” Bates said. “… He’s very light, easygoing, especially on the off-days. So I think he just wanted to get a new vibe or new routine for that day.”
The adjustment in routine seemed to pay immediate dividends when Ohtani led off Game 3 with a triple off lefty Aaron Ashby, swatting a slider down and away into the right-field corner for his first extra-base hit since he homered twice in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series.
But that ended up being his only hit of the day, and he struck out twice more, bringing his postseason tally up to 17 in 44 plate appearances.
Ohtani came into Game 4 hitting 3-for-29 (.103) in his past seven contests. He was starting on the mound that night, which has not typically coincided with productive games at the plate for him this season. While addressing the media a couple days prior, he seemed bothered by questions concerning whether his return to pitching has affected him as a hitter at times.
All it took was the performance of a lifetime to flip that narrative on its head.
“I mean, you can only contain Shohei for so long,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “[The Brewers] had, and they did a great job of it. No one puts more pressure on themselves than Shohei. For him to break out like this, each day we were expecting it.”
Perhaps it was only a matter of time for Ohtani, regardless of his decision to shake things up by hitting on the field. But when the Dodgers needed their superstar, he did more than just show up. He exceeded their loftiest expectations.
Just as he does with regularity.
“This time around,” Ohtani said, “it was my turn to be able to perform.”
