LOS ANGELES — For the past six years, Shohei Ohtani’s only recollection of the season was as a spectator.

He remembers training in Seattle as the Dodgers celebrated winning the 2020 short-season championship. He remembers watching several playoff games last year after elbow surgery cut short his final season with the Angels. He remembers the disappointment of witnessing other teams do what his team could never achieve.

“Overall, it’s a really mixed and complicated feeling,” Ohtani said through translator Will Ireton, “not being able to participate in the postseason.”

That feeling finally disappeared in 2024, when he was scheduled to play postseason baseball for the first time in his major league career on Saturday night.

Twenty-four hours before his first playoff game, Ohtani was asked if he was nervous. Before Friday’s press conference, his translator, Will Ireton, translated the first two questions. However, in response to this question, the reigning National League Player of the Month decided to do it himself.

“No,” Ohtani replied tersely in English, before Ireton could even begin translating.

“I always dreamed of being in an important situation and playing in important matches,” he later explained in Japanese. “So I think the excitement for this is more than anything else I could feel.”

Eight years ago, at just 22 years old, Ohtani’s two-way skills helped the 2016 Nippon Ham Fighters win the NPB Japan Series. This winter he made a change to try again to reach the top of his sport.

Thirty miles northwest of Anaheim, Ohtani joined a Dodgers team that reached the playoffs for 11 straight seasons. Even more tantalizingly, he appreciated the fact that club management viewed the decade, which included only one short-season World Series title, as a failure.

Ohtani’s desire to win and the Dodgers’ ability to consistently achieve that goal have created a symbiotic relationship. It was a welcome change for a player who had never had a single winning season or even significant late-season baseball as a major leaguer.

In September, for the first time in his career, every competition mattered. And he flew away.

During the month, Ohtani led the rankings in batting average, slugging, OPS, hits and steals, as well as a litany of offensive stats. At the end of the season, he became the first player in history to hit 50 homers and 50 steals in a season. He finished the year with scores of 54 and 59, respectively, breaking Ichiro Suzuki’s single-season record for steals by a Japanese-born player.

“For people who are conspiracy theorists who think Vince McMahon is writing the script for Major League Baseball, I think the way he got to 40/40, the game where he had to get to 50/50, I think he added some fuel these people,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “It’s amazing. The ability to slow down everything around him is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

There’s no better example than last year, when he shone in front of the bright lights of the World Baseball Classic, hitting .435 with a 1.345 OPS while going 2-0 on the mound with an ERA of 1.86, earning MVP honors. Ohtani capped off Team Japan’s victory by defeating teammate Mike Trout to secure the victory over Team USA.

“What you don’t know about someone until you see them in those moments is: What type of competitor are they?” Friedman said. “And he didn’t just answer those questions on behalf of Samurai Japan, especially in the ninth round. I got goosebumps watching that round and I think the whole world could see what an amazing fighter he is.”

Ohtani’s performance was preceded by a rousing pre-match speech in which he advised his teammates not to be intimidated by the superstars on the other side of the pitch.

“He led the team,” Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Ohtani’s WBC teammate, recalled through a translator, “he acted like the leader of the team.”

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The experience will be different from the WBC, however, Ohtani admitted, in part because of the five days leading up to the postseason. To stay fit and ready to play, Ohtani visited Dodger Stadium every day throughout the break and got two live at-bats every day. His experienced teammates didn’t feel the need to give him any sage advice heading into his first postseason.

They saw everything they needed along the entire length.

By this time, the Dodgers were losing control of the league lead. Their 8.5-game lead in the National League West at the end of July was down to two in the final week of the season. Ohtani came to the rescue. He produced one of the greatest single-game performances of all time, going 50/50 to help the Dodgers clinch a playoff berth. A week later, his decisive late hits against a Padres team chasing the Dodgers in the rankings clinched the division win.

Over his last 10 games, Ohtani is batting .628 with six runs scored, 10 stolen bases and 20 RBI.

“If there’s any person in my opinion who can handle this,” manager Dave Roberts said, “it’s definitely Shohei.”

It looks more like this now than it did earlier in the year, when Ohtani tended to chase down runners on base. He said he was “very keen to fit in as quickly as possible” and that anxiety was starting to seep into his strengths. The only flaw in his offensive profile will eventually disappear.

Aside from a walk-off grand slam to make it 40/40 and an out-of-this-world performance to make it 50/50, Ohtani’s clutch knack continued to improve as the calendar got closer to October. He went 15-for-26 with runners in scoring position in September and finished the season with an OPS above 1.000 in high-leverage spots.

“I think he understands the talent behind him,” Roberts said. “He can’t do everything on his own.”

This supporting cast, led by Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, made it even more challenging to give Ohtani the spotlight. Despite a year that will likely end with Ohtani’s third MVP trophy, he was intentionally carried just 10 times, more than double the number he had a season ago.

While Padres manager Mike Shildt did not reveal his plan to keep Ohtani off the bases, he did acknowledge that threats directly behind Ohtani in the lineup change the dynamic.

“Usually you put someone on the field because you like the matchups behind them more,” Shildt said. “And behind him you have two MVP-caliber players.”

Shildt said there may come a point in this series when the Padres give Ohtani free base. At the same time, San Diego’s captain expressed confidence in his staff of pitching talent and sounded like he was willing to let them try to attack the Dodgers’ star DH.

Lefties have hit just .233 against the Padres pitching staff this year – the sixth-lowest mark in the majors – and adding southpaw Tanner Scott to the bullpen gives San Diego an important high-impact weapon to combat the many left-handed slugs in the Dodgers’ NLDS lineup .

But few hitters are like Ohtani, who will end up making his mark on the MLB playoffs instead of just watching them.

“I’m excited for our fans,” Friedman said. “I’m thrilled that fans around the world will have the chance to see it. He talked about it when we met in December – every subsequent conversation with him was about October. I think he’s really excited at the moment.”

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously played for the LA Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. Rowan, an LSU graduate, was born in California, grew up in Texas, and moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter: @RowanaKavner.

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