NEW YORK — Home runs sent Shohei Ohtani across home plate twice on Thursday.
Each time, the Dodgers slugger greeted fellow superstar Mookie Betts with the most common phrase in professional baseball: “Let’s go.”
In the first inning, Ohtani uttered the words matter of factly, as encouragement, as a plan of attack. Moments earlier, Los Angeles' leadoff man had started NLCS Game 4 with aplomb, incinerating the second pitch he saw into the Mets' bullpen for a 117.9 mph home run, the third-hardest hit playoff home run ever tracked. Citi Field watched in cold silence as the Dodgers, already up 2-1 in the series, jumped out to an early lead.
Betts, due up second, waited for his teammate to float around the bases. Ohtani bounced his foot off the dish, high-fived Betts and offered those two cliche, yet occasionally telling, words.
Five innings later, the scene played out again, in reverse. This go-around, Betts muted the crowd. With his Dodgers up by three, the contest still technically in the balance, Betts lofted a home run of his own into the left-field seats to give L.A. a commanding 7-2 lead it wouldn’t relinquish. Ohtani, fresh off a well-earned walk, jogged home a few beats ahead of Betts. The two high-fived once more, and again Ohtani let out a “Let’s go.”
But this time Ohtani’s words carried an air of gleeful incredulousness, comic disbelief. It was almost a chuckle. There was ample reason for delight; Ohtani, who had never played in October before this year, knew he was soon to be a single win from the World Series.
Los Angeles' MVP tandem carried the load in Game 4, which ended in a laugher, the visitors winning by a score of 10-2. Ohtani and Betts notched seven of the team's runs to put the Dodgers up in this NLCS three games to one. Ohtani finished the night 1-for-3 with three walks. Betts was 4-for-6 with four RBI.
Thanks to them, the Dodgers can taste it.
“I've tried to stay even-keeled and all those things.” Betts said after the game, “At a time like this, that doesn't really work, so you've just got to jump on the roller coaster and enjoy the ride.”
But the Mets didn’t fold, at least not right away.
Third baseman Mark Vientos responded to Ohtani’s leadoff shot with a solo homer in the bottom of the first. And for a few innings, there was a semblance of a ballgame. Los Angeles plated two in the third off Mets lefty José Quintana, who allowed more runs on Thursday (five) than he had in the past eight weeks combined. Again New York punched back, eking one across on a Brandon Nimmo fielder's choice in the bottom of the frame. The OMG Mets were threatening to hang around.
But Quintana didn’t have it. The Colombian southpaw surrendered two more runs in the fourth on an RBI double from Betts. From there, the game trudged along until Betts broke it open in the sixth by clobbering one to the moon. At that point, all Ohtani could do was giggle out a “Let’s go.”
The two stars, whose contracts add up to $1.065 billion, took very different postseason paths to their night of shared dominance.
Betts, by now, is very familiar with the October stage. His Game 4 home run was the seventh of his playoff career, coming in his 67th career playoff game. Nowadays, the shiny-domed right fielder is undeniably comfy under the brightest lights, but it wasn’t always that way. Betts didn’t go yard for his first 97 postseason plate appearances with the Red Sox — until he took Clayton Kershaw deep in Game 5 of the 2018 World Series.
Ohtani accomplished that feat much faster, smashing a long ball in his second-ever October at-bat. While all of this is new for the Japanese superstar, who endured six fruitless seasons as an Angel in Anaheim, he is, obviously, no stranger to the brightest lights. His first handful of playoff games after that initial cacophonous blast offered wonky results. Before his tater on Thursday, Ohtani was hitless with the bases empty and 7-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
That oddity was just that; Ohtani remains a formidable force no matter the occasion. And on Friday, the Mets will have to deal with him and Betts at least a few more times. The New York club’s improbable run has been fueled, at times, by an irrational level of self-confidence. Often, these Mets have not known when they were beaten, so they simply came back and won.
Perhaps there’s still another twist in this tale, but as of now, things feel ... different. Mets hitters look tired. The bullpen, overmatched and undermanned, can’t find an out, and the 43,882 who battled a sharp, cold night seemed resigned to their beloved club’s fate.
After the game, a Mets clubhouse attendant wheeled a basket of items back from the dugout into the locker room. In the container lay a few gloves, a bat and the enormous plastic “OMG” sign the team has employed as a totem after home runs. If New York can’t conjure a turnaround tomorrow, that attendant can take the sign all the way to storage.
Ohtani and Betts hope that will be the case.
The two represent the overwhelming might of this Dodgers roster. Often, playoff baseball is about the little things: platoon advantages, bullpen game plans, a surprise hero or two. Teams scout one another relentlessly, searching for the smallest potential edge. Games are broken down by the pitch, hyper-analyzed under a microscope.
But on Thursday, Los Angeles reminded everyone that having two of the game’s best players is a pretty damn good strategy, too.