Shohei Ohtani, the only player in Major League Baseball history aside from Babe Ruth with 200 home runs as a hitter and 500 strikeouts as a pitcher, has added another accolade to his Hall-of-Fame resume, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers past the Toronto Blue Jays to a second consecutive World Series title.
Ohtani was the Dodgers' most powerful bat in the Fall Classic and started two games on the mound, including the series-clinching 5-4 extra-innings victory in Game 7 Saturday night at Rogers Centre.
The two-way superstar did get roughed up on the mound in Game 7 and his offensive contributions were inconsequential – he reached base three times but never drove in nor scored a run – but his game-breaking ability did steal the Dodgers a win in the series.
Freddie Freeman hit the walk-off home run in the 18th inning of a gruelling Game 3 that lasted nearly seven hours and tied the record for longest World Series game by innings. But he wouldn't have been in position to do so without Ohtani's mammoth two-homer, five-walk effort.
That's the ability Ohtani has; he can single-handily steer the result of a game.
And while the Blue Jays' offensive engine, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., didn't take over any single game in the World Series, he did deliver two series-shifting home runs. He had the best numbers of any hitter in the lineup that had the best numbers of any team in the post-season.
Here is a look at Guerrero and Ohtani's performance, both in Game 7 and the series as a whole.
Game 7 numbers:
Ohtani sets tone for Dodgers offence
According to championship win probability added (cWPA) – Baseball Reference’s measure of who has increased their team’s odds of winning the World Series the most – Ohtani contributed more to his team’s World Series efforts than Guerrero.
He also had contributed more than any Dodgers position player until Will Smith's game-winning home run. That number came almost entirely from Ohtani's remarkable Game 3.
In fact, Ohtani had a 24.4-per-cent cWPA in Game 3 and was negative in almost every other game as he conceded runs while pitching and occasionally went cold at the plate, going on an 0-for-8 streak through Games 4 and 5. His total cWPA finished lower than the total he had in Game 3 as a result.
But even in the games where Ohtani wasn't the one to deliver the big hit, his presence at the top of the Dodgers lineup presented game-planning issues that impacted the series.
Because Ohtani has that potential to ruin games for opponents, the Blue Jays intentionally walked him in the third inning of Game 6 with a runner on second and two outs. The strategy was ultimately unsuccessful as he came around to score what stood up as the game's winning run.
Ohtani led the Dodgers in home runs and OPS in both the World Series and post-season as a whole.
Yet despite leading his team in most major offensive categories, Ohtani didn't win World Series MVP. That went to his countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the only Dodger with a higher cWPA than Ohtani, aside from Smith.
Guerrero makes statement with historic post-season
Guerrero and the Blue Jays lost Game 7, but the Montreal-born slugger did deliver on even the loftiest expectations placed on him when he rose through the minors as the sensational teenaged son of a major-league legend.
He led the post-season with in RBIs (15) and OPS (1.289) and tied with Ohtani for most home runs (8). Guerrero's 29 hits ranked second to Ernie Clement's 30 – the new MLB playoff record.
Guerrero set the Blue Jays' all-time franchise record for post-season home runs, and did it over the course of 28 days.
"Vladimir took his game to another level," said Blue Jays manager John Schneider to reporters after the heartbreaking loss. "I think for players that are here, and are going to be here in the future, knowing that we've got 14 more years of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. playing complete baseball, is an awesome thing for our team and for our fans."
Ohtani may have had the best game in the series, but Guerrero had moments that felt even more back-breaking.
Guerrero’s two home runs in the series were resounding blows. First, the Blue Jays star took Ohtani deep and next he hit the second of back-to-back homers to lead off Game 5 – a first in World Series history.
Davis Schneider went deep on the first pitch of the game and Blake Snell left the third pitch right in Guerrero’s nitro zone. His blast into the Dodgers’ bullpen held up as the game’s winning run, staking the relentless Blue Jays to a 2-0 lead they wouldn’t yield and sending them back to Toronto with two shots at winning it all.
Guerrero performed well in the final two games of the Blue Jays' season. He got on base four of the 10 times he came to the plate; he came up with spectacular defensive plays in the field, including an exceptional diving grab on a Tommy Edman liner that saved at least one run. But he didn't have a decisive moment. With the game tied 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth, Guerrero hit an outside changeup from Snell 100 m.p.h. to dead centre. It travelled 377 feet before landing in Edman's glove near the edge of the warning track.
Going into the 2025 season, there was fear that the Blue Jays' championship window was on the verge of closing. Guerrero's 14-year, $500-million deal ensured it stayed open. But with his play this post-season, Guerrero's knocked down the entire wall, and rebuilt the future expectations and outlook for the franchise. It’s all on the table now.
Here are Guerrero and Ohtani's stats for the entire series:
