Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts make the Dodgers look unbeatable: “They face the Hall of Famers”

NEW YORK – The Mets have magic. The Dodgers are in dominance.

The Mets have MVP candidates. The Dodgers have MVPs.

The Mets have OMG. The Dodgers are OMG.

The divide between them couldn't have been more evident Thursday night as the Dodgers won 10-2 and took a 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series. Los Angeles has won all three games by at least eight runs. Game 4 was the most telling, as Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts turned an energetic Citi Field into a library by hitting two home runs, five hits, five RBIs, three walks and seven runs.

“It was fun to see him play really well, obviously in the situation that I’m in on base,” Ohtani said of Betts. “So he looks really good and is in control. At this point, my job is to make sure I score on whatever Mookie actually hits.”

Ohtani and Betts have made it seem inevitable that all the purple grimaces in the tri-state area will soon be sent into hibernation. Ohtani sucked the air out of the stadium before fans had even settled into their seats – crushing a leadoff home run on the second pitch off veteran Jose Quintana's left hand, ending the trend of not being able to hit when no one was there was on base. The home run snapped a 22-0 stretch without a runner on base for Ohtani to start the postseason. With the Mets apparently deciding to avoid further damage from the Japanese phenom, Ohtani reached base with a walk in three of his next four plate appearances.

“Freddie (Freeman) has been talking to me to make sure I join the party sooner rather than later,” Ohtani said. “So this time I managed to do that on my first attack.”

Betts added: “It will be difficult to accompany him all the time.”

Yeah, no kidding, especially when the guy hitting behind him is so locked up. Betts has returned to superstardom after starting the postseason hitless in his first nine at-bats. He went 4-for-6, collected a career-high four RBIs, and blasted a towering two-run shot to left field in the sixth – his third home run of the postseason – that completely put the Mets out of the game. Betts' biggest hit of the night came immediately after the Mets made pitching changes and used his clutch gene to power the Dodgers in Game 4.

Betts now has seven career playoff homers and joins Chris Taylor and Steve Garvey as the third Dodgers player with at least four hits and at least four RBIs in a postseason game.

“It's just so hard on starters,” said Freeman, who watched Game 4 from the dugout to rest his sprained ankle. “Right out of the gate you’re facing the Hall of Famers. It's amazing when they swing the bat as well as they do now. It’s fun to bat behind them.”

Like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, LA's newest legendary tandem was relentless against the Mets' pitchers in Game 4. Ohtani relied on patience with his walks, and Betts leaned on his timely hits for power. Quintana failed to start with five earned runs in just 3.1 innings. The fact that Ohtani, Betts and the rest of the Dodgers scored 10 runs while Freeman was sidelined on Thursday is a testament to how complete the offense is right now.

The Dodgers have spent more than $1 billion this offseason for exactly this reason: Overwhelming, exhausting and suffocating opponents to the point that any idea of ​​a comeback by the resilient Mets is moot. The Dodgers have outscored the Mets 30-9 through the first four games of the NLCS.

“You have to give them credit because this is a really good lineup and they can do a lot of different things,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “This is a team that controls the strike zone as much as anyone in the league. Not only do they do this, but they can also cause damage if they force you into the attack zone. And that's what they did. You did it again today.”

As players and managers like to say, everything is bigger this time of year. So it takes another level of patience and confidence to handle the quick turnaround times and additional media tasks of the offseason.

Ohtani, experiencing the playoffs for the first time in his seven-year career in the major leagues, raced around the clubhouse in ecstasy after the Dodgers' Game 4 win. He sat down in the chair in front of his locker, quickly dried his jet-black hair, jogged back to the bathroom, and hurried back to his locker to collect his things: a backpack that he threw over his shoulder, a hat that he turned backwards he was carrying around and a pair of headphones he was holding in his hand. He then stormed out of the clubhouse behind an MLB employee and into the press conference room to talk about his night at the helm and how the Dodgers were one win away from the World Series.

As for Betts, who was playing in the eighth postseason of his career, he operated at a more leisurely pace. As he walked through the Citi Field tunnel in front of countless cameras and reporters, he stopped to hug his family and give a fist bump to a lucky fan exiting the stadium. If Betts seemed calm after the game, it was because he spent the rest of his free time swinging in the cages. Freeman joked that if all the cage work has worked so well for Betts, the first baseman might soon try that approach, too.

“A lot of things clicked and didn’t work, and a lot of things did,” Betts said of his preparation. “Today it worked. But tomorrow is a new day and I will come to work and try to find the same feeling.”

Not much was going for the team from Queens. As for why the Mets are backed into a corner and face elimination for the remainder of the series in the worst-case scenario, they failed to capitalize on their opportunities on Thursday. There was heartbreak in the sixth inning as they loaded the bases with no one out and didn't score a single run. Then there was embarrassment in the eighth inning as the Dodgers continued to push and the stadium was nearly empty with six outs remaining.

The Dodgers, playoff veterans, did the equivalent of stuffing the new kid at school into a locker. It's hard to imagine these Mets leaving Citi Field with games left.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter new York Daily News. Deesha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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