Shohei Ohtani's greatness is often difficult to comprehend.
But Blue Jays manager John Schneider's strategy in attempting to limit Ohtani—who belted two home runs in Los Angeles's Game 3 marathon victory—by not pitching to him at all may have been a window into understanding just how unfathomably good Ohtani is.
Opposing managers can tell you with a straight face that they would rather deal with a former American League MVP and batting champion in Mookie Betts and a former National League MVP and World Series MVP in Freddie Freeman than pitch to Ohtani. The crazier part is, it makes sense!
The Dodgers two-way superstar was intentionally walked four times on Monday night, as Schneider had seen enough of Blue Jays pitchers attempting to get him out en route to Ohtani racking up four extra base hits earlier in the contest.
And Schneider made it clear this wasn't a one-off.
Would Schneider continue to intentionally walk Ohtani?
"Yeah," Schneider said when asked if his strategy towards Ohtani is what "we should expect moving forward." If anyone understands the strategic dilemma that Ohtani presents to Schneider, it's Ohtani's own manager Dave Roberts.
Roberts understands why Schneider won't pitch to Ohtani
"No—It’s—I get it," Roberts said of Schneider indicating he'll continue to intentionally walk Ohtani. "He’s the best player on the planet and he was on the heels of a huge offensive night and John smelled that and wasn’t going to let Sho beat him at all obviously. And even when nobody’s on base and putting him on to make the other guys beat him…
"And fortunately we have other guys behind Shohei that can still do some things…"
Here's how the other guys—Betts and Freeman—have fared against Blue Jays pitching compared to Ohtani through three World Series games.
Player(s)
Batting Average
Extra-Base Hits
RBI
Betts and Freeman
.178
2
2
Ohtani
.500
5
5
Certainly seems like a worthwhile strategy for the Blue Jays. But it's not like Schneider is exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of pitching to Betts and Freeman, the latter of who won Monday night's game with a walk-off homer.
"His performance was really good," Schneider said. "He's arguably the best player on the planet. I think you kind of react in real time a little bit. Again, they have a really talented lineup. It's not the easiest thing in the world to just walk him and face Mookie and Freddie… So every situation is different.
"You got to really execute at a high level against him. And I think the first couple games we did. I know he hit the homer off of Fish [Braydon Fisher] in Game 1, but I think that we executed pretty well minus today. He's a great player and he took some really good swings today."
There's a fair argument that the Blue Jays shouldn't pitch to Ohtani again this series. We'll find out how they approach him in Game 4 at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday night.
