Dodgers are in danger of wasting all-time dominant Shohei Ohtani World Series showing

Through the first five games of the 2025 World Series, Shohei Ohtani hasn’t just been good – he’s been generational.

Ohtani's .400 average, three homers, and preposterous 1.704 OPS (.591 OBP, 1.113 SLG) would stand among the best World Series performances ever if the Dodgers could just close the deal. He’s reached base in nearly 60% of his plate appearances, single-handedly keeping Los Angeles in games that otherwise would have been over early. It’s the kind of series that defines a player’s legend – unless his team lets it die in vain.

Los Angeles has fallen behind in the series, 3-2, in danger of seeing their title defense dreams crushed by the Toronto Blue Jays in Friday's Game 6. This is the nightmare scenario the Dodgers thought they had outspent, out-built, and out-managed their way to avoid – an historic individual performance from Ohtani being swallowed by team-wide offensive collapse.

Dodgers are wasting Shohei Ohtaini's epic World Series performance as supporting cast goes silent

The rest of the Dodgers’ lineup has completely vanished. A .194 collective average and .299 slugging percentage is an unthinkable showing for a roster loaded with the likes of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Teoscar Hernández. They’ve combined for only four home runs and 11 RBI across the entire team, barely matching Ohtani’s individual output. In essence, he’s the only Dodger winning at-bats, while the others are losing entire innings.

Los Angeles has looked lost against Toronto’s pitching – chasing high fastballs, rolling over sliders and failing to adjust to the Blue Jays’ relentless sequencing. The Dodgers’ approach has become passive when aggression is needed and reckless when discipline would help.

For an organization that prides itself on depth and resourcefulness, this offensive implosion is especially damning. The Dodgers have a $350 million payroll, elite development infrastructure, and a lineup filled with All-Stars – yet they’re being carried by one man. Worse, their supposed strength (run production) has completely cratered against a Toronto staff that’s simply out-executing them.

If Los Angeles falls in Game 6 or 7, this World Series will be remembered as The Shohei Ohtani Series That Didn’t Matter. The franchise finally landed the game’s most transcendent player and watched him produce an all-time October performance – and yet, they may still go home empty-handed. That’s the very definition of waste: when one of baseball’s immortals does everything right, and the rest of the team writes his masterpiece into a tragedy.

Ohtani is doing everything that superstars are supposed to do on the sport’s biggest stage, but his teammates have turned it into a one-man show. If the Dodgers lose this series, Ohtani’s numbers will live on as trivia – the “how did they lose with that guy?” kind of lore that haunts franchises for decades.