Shohei Ohtani paralyzed the baseball universe last Friday. His three home runs as a batter and his impeccable pitching performance (10 strikeouts and six scoreless innings) grabbed the headlines of the entire sporting press worldwide, amazed by a unprecedented performance in the history of the Major League Baseball postseason.
The Japanese gave a demonstration of what it means to be a two-way player, that strange and uncommon combination that only he has been able to take to its fullest expression on the most demanding stage. Ohtani awoke from his offensive slumber (he had just three hits and 14 strikeouts in his last seven games) while holding court in the box against the Milwaukee Brewers, who were stunned by such a powerful arsenal.
According to Sarah Langs, the Japanese star became the first pitcher with a multi-home run clash in the postseason, and also the first in MLB history (regular season and playoffs) with three home runs and ten strikeouts.
Matching these numbers seems utopian, impossible, something only within the reach of Ohtani himself. However, in the record books there are precedents of performances in October that to some extent came close to what the Japanese achieved against the Brewers.
An arm of iron
As already mentioned, Ohtani’s performance last Friday is unparalleled. However, there are other players who have also impressed from the mound and in the batter’s box in the same playoff game, and we’re not talking about Babe Ruth, the other benchmark as a two-way player in MLB history.
The case in point is that of Bob Gibson, the legendary Cardinals pitcher between 1959 and 1975. During that span, he won two Cy Young Awards, was a nine-time All-Star and in 1968 achieved a memorable MVP by achieving 22 wins and a stratospheric ERA of 1.12 in 304 innings of work.
Gibson only played in the postseason in three campaigns (1964, 1967 and 1968), but his legacy in those instances is powerful, with two World Series and nine starts in which he always worked a minimum of eight innings, with an ERA of 1.89.
The right-hander is arguably the one who has come closest to Ohtani’s performance. For example, in Game 7 of the 1967 Fall Classic between the Cardinals and Red Sox, Gibson pitched nine innings, struck out 10 and hit a home run in his team’s 7-2 victory.
A year later, in the fourth duel of the 1968 World Series, he repeated with a complete game, a dozen strikeouts and a home run in the Cardinals’ 10-1 victory over the Tigers. In this way, Gibson became the first and only pitcher in postseason history with at least two games of ten strikeouts and a home run.
That said, after seeing what Ohtani accomplished, it would not be far-fetched to predict that he will equal and probably surpass Gibson’s feat sooner rather than later.
Other pitchers who have hit home runs in the postseason
For many years, pitchers consumed their offensive turns in MLB. In fact, until 2021, National League pitchers occupied a space in their teams’ lineups, something that changed in 2022 with the implementation of the universal designated hitter.
It is not surprising, then, that during the Live Ball Era (since 1920), pitchers have hit 2,961 home runs in the regular season alone. If we go to the playoffs, since the beginning of the World Series in 1903, there have been 27 home runs hit by 23 pitchers, including Ohtani’s three last Friday.
Of the pitchers’ home runs in the playoffs, there are some very notable ones. For example, Cuban Mike Cuellar was the first pitcher to hit a grand slam in these instances during the 1970 Championship Series between Baltimore and Minnesota.
That same year, but in the Fall Classic, his teammate Dave McNally imitated him with another grand slam against Cincinnati. McNally was the second and -so far last- pitcher to hit a home run in two different postseason games after Bob Gibson.
The first pitcher to hit the ball beyond the boundaries in the postseason was Jim Bagby (Cleveland) in the 1920 World Series, something also achieved in those years by Rosy Ryan (1924-Giants), Jack Bentley (1924-Giants) and Jesse Haines (1926-Cardinals).
Haines is one of the most recognized, as in addition to hitting the ball beyond the limits, he threw nine scoreless innings in the Cardinals’ 4-0 victory over the Yankees in Game 3 of the 1926 World Series.
The only pitchers to throw nine scoreless innings and hit a home run in the postseason are Haines and Bucky Walters (1940-Cincinnati).
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