Ohtani's massive homer makes absurd run with RISP historic

NEW YORK — Add this to the list of things Shohei Ohtani has done that no one in the recorded history of baseball has done before: seventeen hits in his last 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

Ohtani's huge, no doubt, three-run moonshot in the eighth inning of the Dodgers' 8-0 win in Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday went over the right-field foul pole at Citi Field and into the history books.

Before that moment, no one had 17 hits in any span of 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position — regular season and postseason. It was a dodger who would come closest. Frank Howard had a 16-for-19 spree for the Dodgers in 1962.

Now comes Ohtani, who established the 50-homer, 50-stolen base club in his first regular season with the Dodgers and is still the talk of the postseason because of his extreme divisiveness. Going into Game 3, he was 4-for-5 with a homer and a pair of walks with runners in scoring position this postseason, 6-for-8 with a homer and three walks with runners on base — and 0- For -19 with the bases empty. It went 0-for-21 before he walked against Mets reliever Tyler Magill with one out and two on in the eighth.

“Welcome to October, where everything's grown up,” Hall of Famer John Schmaltz said on the FS1 broadcast.

That was true even after Ohtani connected against Megill. The only question was whether baseball would be fair. Statcast says it left Ohtani's bat at 115.9 mph and traveled 397 feet right down the line, and the eye test that matters — right-field umpire Mike Muchlinski — judged it fair. The Mets called for umpire review and the home run was confirmed.