No Baselines Moment: The Dodgers and Ohtani’s Exceptional Night

Shohei Ohtani just played what may be the greatest game of all time. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the World Series for the second consecutive season because Ohtani carried them there with a box score that defies belief. Ten strikeouts, three home runs, six shutout innings, an impossible performance that elevated a great team into a moment of pure transcendence. The Dodgers are more than a team; they could become a living exhibit in the Museum of Exceptionalism. Ohtani stands at its center, redefining what one athlete can mean to a franchise, to a sport, to possibility itself. “He just blows all our imaginations out of the water,” Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts said.

At No Baselines, we have been following the Dodgers’ path to this point, the long arc from analytics to execution, from discipline to disruption. Our earlier posts traced the blueprint of this transformation, from Guggenheim Baseball Management’s strategic overhaul to Andrew Friedman’s data-driven leadership, from Ohtani’s entry into the 50–50 club to their World Series breakthrough. The Dodgers have stayed on course, continuing to excel through consistency, innovation, and a commitment to excellence that has become the foundation of their team effort.

The question now is whether this pursuit of exceptionalism can lead to a lasting dynasty, one that stands beside the great icons of sport: the New York Yankees, the Boston Celtics, the Montreal Canadiens, the New England Patriots, and others who defined eras through sustained greatness. The Dodgers’ experiment is still unfolding, but it represents something larger than baseball, a vision of what happens when talent, strategy, and organizational discipline converge not just to win, but to build a legacy of exceptionalism.