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The Dodgers' rotation is scattered and tired. The Dodgers' bullpen is missing some formerly beloved contributors. The Dodgers' aura may have been pricked by the San Diego Padres, several times over down the stretch (and for the past few years). But the 2024 Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani.
On Saturday night in Los Angeles, LA fell behind early when Manny Machado pummeled a Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitch deep into the night to extend San Diego's first inning lead to 3-0. The crowd's nerves were palpable -- but can they even be called "nerves" if the entire group seems resigned to their fate? They weren't exactly anxious. They were just tired, scarred by the repetitive.
But the Padres put two men on in the bottom of the second inning, and they did so in front of Ohtani during his playoff debut. Ever the theatrical hitter, the never-nervous Ohtani mashed a baseball off of his own leg, hopped around a little bit, and collected himself.
He then mashed the very next pitch -- an impossibly high fastball -- well out of the yard, called gleefully by Joe Davis, the Dodgers' hometown announcer working the national broadcast.
"WAS THERE ANY DOUBT?"
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 6, 2024
Joe Davis on the call for Shohei Ohtani's first-ever MLB postseason home run 🔥pic.twitter.com/6EHYNinbYo
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani victimizes Dylan Cease with titanic game-tying home run vs. Padres in NLDS Game 1
Worry naught for the future. Cease your concern about Freddie Freeman's ankle or Edgardo Henriquez in the spotlight or Landon Knack down the line. Embrace the here and now. Celebrate the greatest hitter of a generation choosing you and working with your ownership group to find a way to make an impossible contract work.
Plenty went wrong this season, this summer, and this September. But every time Ohtani steps to the plate, he serves as the equalizer. He can snatch momentum back for the Dodgers with one impossible tomahawk.
And he did so again on Saturday, homering off the kind of offering from Cease that people just ... don't hit out very regularly.
Except Ohtani does. He's done it before.
Some of you may remember this Ohtani HR vs Dylan Cease at the start of 2021 (in a game he pitched).
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) October 6, 2024
To me, this will always be one of his most memorable HRs because this was the day that he showed people he could be the two-way star everyone missed in 19-20. pic.twitter.com/IT4qJAIG9S
We have ourselves a ballgame, a series, and a superstar.