Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers mystique take the lead at the World Series

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I suppose there must be more devastating ways to lose a World Series game than to hand it over to your bullpen goat after 16 innings so that he can give up the walkoff home run, but I can’t think of any.

It’s hard to pity any professional athlete – it is their function to provide us with the agony as well the ecstasy – but it is hard not to feel a little for Jays reliever Brendon Little.

Little came in after 16 innings on Monday night, and you just know Jays manager John Schneider would have put in one of those golden retrievers that fetch bats instead if that had been an option. But Little was all that was left, so he got the call.

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He looked good in one inning. Then he looked like himself in the next. A Freddie Freeman solo shot to straightaway centre sealed it off. The Jays now trail the Dodgers 2-1 in the World Series, though it looks and feels like more.

The loss isn’t Little’s fault, but he should never pitch for Toronto again. He’s shot. To put him in now would constitute wanton cruelty. If the rules allowed it, he should either be traded or placed into baseball witness protection.

So the guy you most expected and least wanted to see it happen to gets the loss hung around his neck. But the problem started earlier.

If the Toronto Blue Jays go on to lose this World Series, one of the reasons will be that they could not accept what they were up against.

The Dodgers are stacked with great human talent, and they also have Shohei Ohtani. He is apparently a homo sapien, though you wouldn’t know it by watching him swing a bat.

On Monday, Ohtani played the Blue Jays. Just Ohtani.

He doubled his first time up. He homered the next time. Then he doubled again.

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When he came up in the seventh, the Jays had a one-run lead and were already deep into their bullpen. They chose Seranthony Dominguez to face him.

The bases were empty. The stars right behind Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman, hadn’t been up to much. The Jays still chose to approach Ohtani like a baseball playing mortal. Rather than accept that he is not in their league, or anyone else’s, they threw to him.

Ohtani put Dominguez’s first pitch over the wall in centre.

The Jays then intentionally walked Ohtani four straight times. Nothing came of it. In the 17th, for reasons that defy logic, Little pitched to Ohtani. Well, ‘pitched’ in quotes. He threw the ball everywhere but at the plate. Still – what are you thinking?

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Here’s an idea – stop pitching to this guy. Every time. As a rule. Unless you’re winning by a bucketload of runs, take him off the board as anything but a base runner.

Put the other Dodgers in the position of having to beat you. Aside from one guy, none of them have shown that they’re up to that.

Had the Jays walked Ohtani the first four times they faced him on Monday, they’d have won the game 5-3. He is a one-man key to the game. On Tuesday, he’ll get a chance to beat Toronto two ways – hitting and pitching.

Monday’s game contained multitudes. Alejandro Kirk’s three-run homer. Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s epic sprint from first to home on a Bo Bichette single. Base-running gaffes from both teams that could feature in a public service announcement. Remarkable pitching from both bullpens after both starters were just meh.

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But the only story was Ohtani. He reached base nine times on Monday. The record for a World Series game was six. You get the strong impression that he puts the ball where he likes, when he likes, and just for fun.

After the game there was a tease that Ohtani might be slightly injured. He had a hitch in his stride running into second in the late going. But the smile he flashed as his interpreter asked about it suggested that is all part of the show.

“I want to go to sleep as soon as possible so that I can get ready,” Ohtani said.

So much for that.

We wanted the best player in the world, and we got him on Monday.

It is a different experience sitting in the stands at Dodger Stadium as Ohtani comes up – not like anyone anywhere else.

The crowd gets giddy. Not amped up or into it, but giggly and excited. As soon as they hear the strains of his walk-up song – Michael Buble’s vampy Feelin’ Good – they are out of their seats, waving their arms around, acting foolish.

Ohtani is winning games with his presence, as well as his bat.

After the game, Schneider seemed to suggest that he will not be pitching to Ohtani going forward.

“He’s arguably the best player on the planet,” Schneider said.

Who exactly are you having that argument with, and have they seen baseball before?

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Not pitching to Ohtani is a start, but after Monday’s gut punch, you wonder if it’s coming too late.

Toronto needed to win on Monday. Now they absolutely must win on Tuesday. You’re not going down 3-1 to this team, with their pitching, and hope to come back on them.

There are no more excuses for small errors. There is no reason to let the one guy you know can beat you beat you. There is no way you should be letting it get to Brendon Little. You can’t keep getting thrown out because you weren’t really paying attention (that was Bichette in the early going). Most of all, you can’t let Ohtani, the Dodgers and the Dodgers mystique get into your head.

“You don’t take a second for granted in these really cool baseball places,” third baseman Ernie Clement said before the game.

That’s wisdom, but maybe not the way he meant it.

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