Shohei Ohtani may be one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is having one of the greatest Octobers in MLB history.
And while Guerrero continued to use the same strong process that earned him those exceptional results, Yoshinobu Yamamoto stole the show from both him and Ohtani on Saturday night, pitching a second consecutive complete game in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 5-1 Game 2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Coming into Saturday’s Game 2, Guerrero’s 2025 post-season ranked top five all-time in batting average (.447) and wRC+ (274).
But if he wants to cement his standing amongst the best playoff performances of all time and help the Toronto Blue Jays win their first World Series since 1993, he’ll have to come up with more big swings as the series shifts to Los Angeles on Monday.
Ohtani hit a late homer in the Blue Jays' 11-4 Game 1 win on Friday, tying Guerrero for the post-season lead with six. They are also tied for fifth-most home runs in a single post-season.
It was a quiet night for the superstar duo thanks to extraordinary performances from Yamamoto and Kevin Gausman, who allowed only one run on two hits through the first six innings before giving up two solo shots in the seventh to Will Smith and Max Muncy.
On Saturday night, Guerrero hit the ball harder than Ohtani and chased less, but the Dodgers still came out on top. Here is a breakdown of how the two superstars compared in Game 2.
Guerrero shows discipline, intent
In his first at-bat of the game, Guerrero was flummoxed by Yamamoto, as the Blue Jays often were throughout the game. The first baseman took two balls to start, but proceeded to either foul off or whiff at five straight pitches in the zone, ultimately going down swinging on a curveball, stranding runners on the corners. Four of Yamamoto's eight strikeouts came on the curve.
But the two-time Silver Slugger adjusted in the third inning, cheating on an inside fastball and lacing it off the left-field wall at 113.9 m.p.h., the hardest hit ball either Guerrero or Ohtani have launched so far in the World Series.
Guerrero also showed strong process in his next at-bat but wasn't rewarded with results, taking two balls before hitting a sharp ground ball up the middle that was snared by a well-positioned Tommy Edman.
Ohtani chases and gets away with it
Ohtani took two fastballs at the bottom of the zone in his first at-bat before making his hardest contact all night on a fly out to left-fielder Nathan Lukes.
Locked into a pitchers' duel with Yamamoto that kept the score at 1-1 through six innings, Gausman got the best of Ohtani, inducing consecutive pop-ups from the imposing slugger.
Both times Ohtani offered at fastballs up and out of the zone and skied out to Ernie Clement in foul territory. It was only the second time Ohtani popped up in two straight at-bats against the same pitcher this season, the first coming against White Sox starter Sean Burke on July 2.
Ohtani’s only hit came on a Louis Varland changeup he chased off the inside corner for a broken-bat ground ball single that snuck through the infield.
It was a lot of chase for a usually disciplined hitter that ran an above-average 26 per cent chase rate this season. Ohtani swung at two of four pitches outside of the zone and took another ill-advised swing at an up-and-in heater on the second pop-up.
Here are Guerrero and Ohtani's numbers for the full series:
