In tossing six scoreless innings and hitting about 1,430 feet of home runs, Shohei Ohtani put up probably the most unique performance in postseason history Friday in NLCS Game 5 against the Brewers. It was perhaps the most spectacular athletic performance ever to take place on a baseball field. Maybe even any sort of field. But was it the greatest individual performance in major league postseason history?
That’s a difficult question, one that many would argue hinges on context. Obviously, starring in Game 4 of the NLCS with a 3-0 series lead isn’t the same as Game 7 of World Series.
But what is it up against? Here’s a rundown of perhaps the top 10 single-game performances in MLB postseason history.
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1963 World Series Game 1: Sandy Koufax fans 15 Yankees
Koufax threw two shutouts in the 1965 World Series, including one in Game 7 to finish off the Twins. Still, perhaps even more impressive was his two-game set in a sweep of the Yankees in the 1963 World Series. Koufax outdueled Whitey Ford twice in 5-2 and 2-1 victories, and his 15 strikeouts in Game 1 set a postseason record that has only since been exceeded twice, including once by…
1968 World Series Game 1: Bob Gibsons 17-K shutout
Fairly or not, Gibsons Game 7 loss keeps the Game 1 performance out of the top 10 here. Prior to that, he outdueled 1968 AL Cy Young winner Denny McLain twice in 4-0 and 10-1 complete-game victories. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, McLain came back out and won Game 6 and Mickey Lolich, working on two days rest after winning Game 5, got the better of Gibson as the Tigers won Game 7 by a 4-1 score.
2022 ALDS Game 1: Yordan Alvarez walks it off in ninth
In all of postseason history, two individual performances have amounted to at least a 1.0 Win Probability Added, which is a measure of how each event in a game changed win expectancy (a first-inning homer might increase a team’s chances of winning from 50 to 60 percent, which would be a 0.1 win expectancy, while Kirk Gibson’s famous walkoff homer in the 1988 World Series was worth 0.87). The first of those was pulled off by Babe Ruth the pitcher, who allowed one run over 14 innings to win Game 2 of the 1916 World Series for the Red Sox. The second was by Alvarez, who had already driven in two runs against the Mariners when he hit a three-run homer off Paul Sewald with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to give the Astros a 7-5 win. That changed the Astros’ win expectancy from nine percent to 100. But, of course, it was Game 1 of the ALDS.
2010 NLDS Game 1: Roy Halladays no-hitter in postseason debut
The Blue Jays never reached the playoffs in Halladays 12 seasons in Toronto, so the 33-year-old, who was about to win his second Cy Young Award in his first season with the Phillies, was making his postseason debut when he faced the Reds to start the 2010 NLDS. What followed was his second no-hitter of the year (the first was also a perfect game), as he allowed just a single walk to the Reds.
Yes, Game 8, as this was the fourth and final World Series to use a best-of-nine format. The New York Giants starter, Nehf, was matched up with Waite Hoyt for the third time after losing Game 2 by a 3-0 score and game 5 by a 3-1 margin. This time, Nehf got the better of the future Hall of Famer in a 1-0 game, ending the series with the Giants winning 5-3. It helped a bit that Babe Ruth was limited to a pinch-hitting appearance by a bad knee.
Pick either. After losing the first two games of the best-of-five series, the Red Sox stormed back to take Games 3 and 4 by 9-3 and 23-7 margins. Game 5 was setting up as another shootout, with Cleveland leading 8-7 after three in spite of OLearys grand slam in the third. Thats when Martinez, who had been forced to leave Game 1 with a shoulder problem, took over. He pitched six hitless innings with eight strikeouts, and OLeary hit a second homer, a three-run shot, to break an 8-8 tie in the seventh. The seven RBI from OLeary is still tied for the postseason record.
Gibson didn’t really need to homer off Boston’s Jim Lonborg, who was also going for third win of the World Series, to pull off the Game 7 victory here, but it was the cherry on top. Gibson won Games 1, 4 and 7 in the series, allowing a total of three runs in his three complete games.
With the Yankees trying to close out the Dodgers, the newly coined Mr. October made sure the nickname would stick, homering on all three of his swings in an 8-4 win. Jackson walked in his first plate appearance and scored on a homer from Chris Chambliss. He then homered in the fourth, fifth and eighth, plating a total of five runs in the 8-4 victory.
Larsen had allowed nine runs — five earned — over 5 2/3 innings in two career postseason appearances for the Yankees when he suddenly turned in one of the most famous performances of all-time in the 1956 World Series, pitching a perfect game in a 2-0 win over the Dodgers. Facing a lineup loaded with five future Hall of Famers, he struck out seven while going 27 up and 27 down. It was the only ever postseason no-hitter until Halladays in the 2010 NLCS.
Mickey Mantle versus Willie Mays turned out to be a dud, as both superstars struggled in the second and final World Series matchup (both were rookies when the Yankees and Giants previously met in 1951). Terry, in his one and only All-Star campaign, turned out to be the difference maker. After taking a tough 2-0 loss in Game 2, he went the distance in a 5-3 victory in Game 5 and then hurled a shutout in Game 7, with Willie McCovey lining out to second baseman Bill Richardson to end a 1-0 game.
A rather anonymous regular until this point, Freese had already put together a whopper of a postseason by the time the Cardinals-Rangers World Series got to Game 6. He went 0-for-3 with a walk in his first four plate appearances that night, but he had a two-run triple over Nelson Cruzs head to tie game in the ninth and then a walkoff homer in the bottom of the 11th to send the series to Game 7. He had a two-run double in that one, too, as the Cardinals won the championship. In all, he hit .397 with five homers, eight doubles and 21 RBI in 18 postseason games.
Could anyone else do what Ohtani did in finishing off the Brewers? No, not a chance. He hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium and touched 100 mph on the radar gun twice, throwing the 11 hardest pitches of the game. Ohtanis three-homer game was the 13th in postseason history, and he struck out 10 over six scoreless innings in the 5-1 victory. Ranking his performance on a list like this just comes down to how much one wants to weigh leverage. If Ohtani had been mediocre with a 3-0 series lead in the NLCS, the Dodgers still might have won the game and almost certainly would have won the series. Thats not the case with most of these other candidates.
About the closest anyone has ever come to winning a World Series by himself, Bumgarner entered Game 7 against the Royals having already pitched seven innings of one-run ball in Game 1 and a complete-game shutout in Game 5. Going into Game 7, it was figured that he might have one or two innings in him on two-days rest, but he took the ball to begin the fifth for the Giants and never gave it up, throwing five scoreless innings to finish off a 3-2 victory.
The performance that made him a Hall of Famer. Morris, in his lone year with the Twins, won Game 1 against the Braves and then took a no-decision in his first matchup with Smoltz in Game 4, which Atlanta went on to win. Game 7 saw both pitchers work on three days rest, and Smoltz was incredible for 7 1/3 innings in the scoreless duel. Morris, meanwhile, kept plugging along, throwing 10 scoreless innings before Gene Larkin singled in Dan Gladden to give the Twins the title. No one since has pitched more than nine innings in a postseason game.