The baseball mind goes where it will go. At 8:49 p.m. Eastern time — 5:49 local in Los Angeles — Milwaukee’s Dustin May grooved a cutter to Shohei Ohtani that cut over the heart of the plate. Ohtani had not hit a home run in two months. He had looked hurt at the plate, helpless even. One pitch earlier, Ohtani swung at a cutter, and he missed it by two feet.
He did not miss this time. No, this time Shohei Ohtani launched a majestic home run deep into the right-field stands, and he tossed the bat aside, and he threw both arms in the air, not unlike the Gladiator did before shouting, “Are you not entertained?” The Dodgers led 4-0. Ohtani joyfully trotted around the bases, pausing now and again for a first pump or a high five, and all around him at Dodger Stadium reigned happy chaos. Madness.
Yes, the Dodgers still trailed the Brewers 3 games to 0 in this best-of-seven championship series.
Yes, it was only the second inning.
Yes, Milwaukee has come back from early deficits all year — they’re better at it than any team in a decade or more.
But the baseball mind goes where it will go, and now the mind pondered: Is Shohei Ohtani back? Will he become the Ohtani of World Series Game 3, when he was so superior and magnificent that the Blue Jays could think of nothing else to do but intentionally walk him four times?
And what if he does? The Dodgers would have Tarik Skubal pitch Game 5. They would have Yoshinobu Yamamoto for Game 6.
If the Dodgers win those two games — and they very well could — this series will come down to a Game 7 in Milwaukee, and all those Brewers ghosts from the last four decades will be howling, and those Dodgers veterans who have looked so tired and punchless throughout this series will reach deep into themselves and …
The baseball mind goes where it will go.
But these Milwaukee Brewers are not interested in hypotheticals. That’s their superpower.
