A year ago, Shohei Ohtani owned October. Right now, he’s looking nothing like that guy.
The Dodgers are heading back to Los Angeles down 2-0 in the National League Championship Series, and the Brewers have done it while outspending the game’s biggest stars by a wide margin. Milwaukee, with a payroll less than half of L.A.’s, has pushed the Dodgers around for 18 innings and left a roster full of high-priced talent searching for answers.
Ohtani has been at the center of the frustration. The four-time MVP, the face of the Dodgers, and the kind of player who can flip a playoff game in a blink has been unusually quiet through the first two games.
In Monday night’s 7-4 loss, he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. That leaves him 1-for-7 with three strikeouts in the series.
Zoom out, and the numbers tell an even tougher story. Across six postseason games, Ohtani has only three hits in 20 at-bats, and none of them have gone for extra bases.
He’s hitting .150/.261/.150 with seven strikeouts and three walks. And the power has vanished, too - he hasn’t homered since Aug. 18 at Colorado, a drought that’s now up to 24 games.
That slump isn’t just a postseason issue. Ohtani spent the end of the regular season in a rough patch after landing on the IL in early September with lingering knee and biceps injuries. Over his final 18 games, he hit .157/.289/.214 with three extra-base hits, 29 strikeouts and a wRC+ of 51.
That’s a long way from the version of Ohtani who turned last October into a showcase.
On Oct. 17, 2025, he delivered what might have been the greatest postseason game ever. He started on the mound with the Dodgers holding a 3-0 series lead over Milwaukee, threw six shutout innings, gave up two hits and struck out 10 Brewers.
Then he did damage at the plate, going 3-for-3 with three solo home runs and a walk. The Dodgers won 5-1 and advanced to the World Series.
He kept hammering the ball in the Fall Classic against Toronto, finishing with nine hits, including three homers, as Los Angeles beat the Blue Jays in seven games. For the entire 2024 postseason, Ohtani put together a .265/.405/.691 line with eight home runs, 14 RBIs and 16 walks against 23 strikeouts in 17 games.
The Dodgers could use that player again in a hurry.
This lineup has enough names to survive a downturn from one star, but it hasn’t happened against Milwaukee. Through two games, Los Angeles is batting .169/.261/.186 and has just one extra-base hit in the series. Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández are the only Dodgers with multiple hits, and the team has scored only five runs.
The Brewers have helped create that mess. Their bullpen has been excellent through the first two games, especially after short outings from their top two starters.
Milwaukee relievers have piled up 9 ⅔ shutout innings, giving up two hits and three walks while striking out 15. In Game 2, four pitchers combined for an MLB postseason-record five perfect innings with seven strikeouts.
Now the Dodgers go home with the pressure squarely on them. This is not a place the franchise is used to being, and suddenly it’s trying to keep a season alive that was supposed to end with another championship.
A year after Ohtani sent Milwaukee packing, the Brewers are two wins from returning the favor.
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Pat Murphys fingerprints were all over it, from the lineup choices to how the pitching was managed once the game tightened. With the Dodgers now chasing from behind, the Brewers can point to a performance that looked equal parts execution and planning, and theyre carrying a real sense that their manager has pushed the right buttons at the right time. [Read more 🡒]