Did Shohei Ohtani’s All-Time Great NLCS Performance Break Baseball?

Ohtani’s historic three-homer, 10-strikeout masterpiece in the Dodgers’ clinching win over the Brewers may have just changed baseball forever.

Shohei Ohtani’s all-time great three-homer, 10-strikeout game on Friday in the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Game 4, pennant-clinching win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series was not only the greatest single-game performance in baseball history, it may have just broken baseball and could lead to the game changing forever.

Let me explain how.

It’s no secret that MLB owners want a salary cap when the current collective bargaining agreement ends after the 2026 season. And since the players’ union would never go for that, it’s widely assumed that a lockout will go into effect in a little over a year, potentially extending into the 2027 season.

“The league has come out and said they were going to lock us out,” MLB Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark told me at All-Star week in Atlanta back in July. “We don’t believe salary caps are good for players or are good for the game. We believe salary caps are actually anti-competition. There are ways to improve our systems without a restriction of player compensation.”