LOS ANGELES — Dodgers pitching dominated the 2025 National League Championship Series, but in Game 4 the offense picked up the slack as well. Shohei Ohtani was the driving force for both on Friday, leading
a 5-1 win over the Brewers that sent the Dodgers back to the World Series.
Ohtani hit three home runs and struck out 10 in six scoreless innings, making good on manager Dave Roberts’ pregame statement, “I think this is his opportunity to make his mark on this series.”
The first 20 or so minutes decided Game 4, with Ohtani’s full complement of skills on display.
He walked his first batter on the mound but then struck out his next three to finish a scoreless top of the first inning. Then, after running to the dugout entrance to begin putting on his batting gear — elbow, hand, shin guards and the like — Ohtani crushed Jose Quintana’s sixth pitch of the game 446 feet into the right field pavilion.
Amazingly, this was the second consecutive NLCS Game 4 home run for Ohtani in the first inning off Quintana, who was with the New York Mets last year. Both games were on October 17, too. Baseball is incredible sometimes.
But the Dodgers were not done, adding three more singles in the next four batters to plate two more in the first inning. The three-run frame was the highest-scoring inning of the entire NLCS.
Quintana gave up six hits in all and got six outs in just his second appearance back from a calf injury, putting more pressure on a Brewers bullpen that has shouldered the majority of the load in October. The Dodgers have faced the veteran Quintana four times in the postseason. In addition to last year with the Mets, Quintana also faced the Dodgers in Games 1 and 5 in the 2017 NLCS while with the Cubs. The Dodgers scored 16 runs in 12 1/3 innings in those four starts, and won all four games, two of them pennant-clinchers.
In the fourth inning, Ohtani hit a 469-foot blast off Chad Patrick that not only padded his own lead, but hit over the roof of the right field pavilion and out of Dodger Stadium.
Ohtani also struck out 10 batters, joining a select group of Dodgers pitchers with at least eight strikeouts to hit a home run in the same game. Ohtani joined Don Newcombe (May 30, 1955 for Brooklyn) as the only such Dodgers pitchers to do so with two home runs. And Ohtani is the only one to do so in the postseason.
“These games are usually reserved for Williamsport,” analyst Ron Darling said during the TBS broadcast.
Ohtani is the first pitcher in MLB history to homer multiple times in a postseason game.
Ohtani pitched into the seventh inning for the first time this season, though he allowed a walk and single to end his night. Alex Vesia induced a popout and double play grounder to escape without damage and keep Ohtani’s pitching ledger spotless. Dodgers pitching allowed four runs in the four-game series, matching the 1963 World Series for the fewest given up in a series lasting at least four games. That 1963 Fall Classic against the Yankees, like this NLCS, ended in a sweep.
Now free from the burden of pitching, Ohtani in the very next inning connected for his third home run of the game, just the third Dodger to do that in the postseason. Kiké Hernández did so in Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS (also a pennant-clinching game) and Chris Taylor pulled it off in Game 5 of the 2021 NLCS.
Ohtani is also one of only four Dodgers to strike out at least 10 batters in a scoreless start of at least six innings in the postseason, along with Sandy Koufax (twice), Clayton Kershaw, and Blake Snell.
Ohtani accomplished both of those rare feats in the same game.
Now the world’s greatest player and the Dodgers are back in the World Series, the first defending champ to make it back to the Fall Classic the next year since the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies.
Friday particulars
Home runs: Shohei Ohtani 3 (5)
WP — Shohei Ohtani (2-0): 6+ IP, 2 hits, 3 walks, 10 strikeouts
LP — Jose Quintana (0-1): 2+ IP, 6 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk, 1 strikeout
Up next
The Dodgers are back in the World Series and have the next six days off. They’ll find out this weekend whether they will play the Blue Jays or Mariners, with Game 1 on Friday, October 24, either in Toronto or Los Angeles.
