LOS ANGELES — Baseball has never seen anything like Shohei Ohtani. It may not be unanimous, but many would argue the Los Angeles Dodgers legend is the most dangerous hitter in the game right now. Throw in — no pun intended — the fact that he's one of the nastiest pitchers in the game, too, and we have the most unique of individuals making history right before our eyes.

No one has done what Ohtani — the $700 million man — has done. Comparisons can be made to the great Babe Ruth, of course, but Ruth was long done pitching on a regular basis when he became a prolific slugger with the New York Yankees.

Ohtani is doing BOTH — and doing it right now. He will be the starting pitcher in  Game 4 of the National League Championship Series on Friday night, and they could very well clinch their return trip that night. 

He'll be out there hitting, too, though some may say that's a relative term in this 2025 postseason. Ohtani, who hit .282 with 55 home runs and 102 RBIs during the regular season, hasn't hit much in the playoffs. He's just 5-for-34 in October, and three of those five hits came in the wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds.

It's been a struggle since then, though. The Philadelphia Phillies may have lost their playoff series to the Dodgers, but they threw one left-handed pitcher after another at Ohtani, and he went 1-for-18 with 11 strikeouts.

The Milwaukee Brewers have tried the same approach through the first two games, and he's just 1-for-7 with three walks in the two Dodgers wins.

Ohtani isn't concerned — although he did take batting practice on the field Wednesday, something he never does. And he said the fact that's he pitching at the same time has nothing to do with his hitting struggles.

Nothing at all.

"I don't necessarily think that the pitching has affected my hitting performance," Ohtani said through an interpreter on Wednesday. "Just on the pitching side, as long as I control what I can control, I feel pretty good about putting up results. On the hitting side, just the stance, the mechanics, that's something that I do. It's a constant work in progress. I don't necessarily think so. It's hard to say."  

His struggles have a lot more to do with facing some tough left-handed pitchers. He's reached base only three times in 22 at-bats against lefties. We know he CAN hit left-handed pitching, because he batted .279 vs. lefties during the regular season, and 15 of his 55 homers came against lefties in 222 at-bats.

It makes sense that he's being attacked this way, and he plans to fix it.

"I think it makes sense strategically on their side that they would put a lot of left-handed pitchers against me," Ohtani said. "I'm really all focused on just putting up better-quality at-bats. I think in that sense, that's what I'm always going to be working on."

The Dodgers-Brewers series resumes on Thursday night, and Tyler Glasnow will start for the Dodgers in Game 3. The Brewers haven't announced any plans yet, but it's likely that veteran left-hander Jose Quintana will play some sort of role, either as a starter or a bulk guy behind an opener. He'll likely face Ohtani at least once.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts isn't worried about Ohtani, either. He knows an offensive explosion could happen at any minute.

"I think he's controlling the strike zone, I think he's still staying aggressive when he gets his pitch," Roberts said. "There was a lineout to right field and there was three walks. There was the base hit in a run-scoring opportunity. Those are positives for me."

The Dodgers are 7-1 in this postseason, and they're winning despite Ohtani's offensive struggles. They've been doing it with pitching — Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto made history in the first two games of this series — and are two wins away from another trip to the World Series. 

The Brewers will still have something to say about that, of course. They won an MLB-best 97 games this year and were 6-0 vs. the Dodgers. Road teams are 5-0 in this round or the playoffs, and the Brewers had to like watching the Toronto Blue Jays — the other No. 1 seed — blow out the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night. 

Maybe they can do the same thing, too.

GAME 1 (Monday, Oct. 13): Los Angeles Dodgers 2, Milwaukee Brewers 1 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis. WP — Blake Snell (3-0). LP — Chad Patrick (0-1). Dodgers lead series 1-0.

GAME 2 (Tuesday, Oct. 14): Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Milwaukee Brewers 1 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis. WP — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2-1). LP — Freddy Peralta (1-2). Dodgers lead series 2-0.

GAME 3 (Thursday, Oct. 16):  Milwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 6:08 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Calif. TV: TBS, truTV. Streaming: HBO Max.

GAME 4 (Friday, Oct. 17):  Milwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 8:38 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Calif. TV: TBS, truTV. Streaming: HBO Max.

GAME 5 (Saturday, Oct. 18), if necessary:  Milwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 8:08 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Calif. TV: TBS, truTV. Streaming: HBO Max.

GAME 6 (Monday, Oct. 20), if necessary: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Milwaukee Brewers, 8:08 p.m. ET at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis. TV: TBS, truTV. Streaming: HBO Max.

GAME 7 (Tuesday, Oct. 21), if necessary: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Milwaukee Brewers, 8:08 p.m. ET at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wis. TV: TBS, truTV. Streaming: HBO Max.