Shohei Ohtani emphatically downplays nerves ahead of postseason debut

Shohei Ohtani has accomplished a staggering amount over seven seasons in the Majors. A Rookie of the Year Award, two MVPs (with a third likely on the way), top-five Cy Young finish, World Baseball Classic title, baseball's first-ever 50-50 season — the list goes on forever. But despite that lengthy resume, there's one box that Ohtani hasn't yet checked: playing in a playoff game. Granted, the dumpster fire also known as the Los Angeles Angels can bear most of the blame for that, but still; it's remarkable that someone universally acknowledged to be among the greatest talents the sport has ever seen has never step foot on the sport's biggest stage.

Until Saturday, that is, when Ohtani's Los Angeles Dodgers face off against the San Diego Padres in Game 1 of what should be a heated NLDS. After more than half a decade of waiting, the two-way phenom will finally get the chance to play for a World Series — and given the state of L.A.'s beleaguered starting rotation, they're going to need as much offensive production from Ohtani as they can get if they have eyes on the team's first full-season title since 1988.

That's a lot of pressure, a kind that Ohtani hasn't yet faced in his baseball career. But as he embarks on the biggest games of his life, he seems totally unphased.

Shohei Ohtani as cool as can be ahead of playoff debut

Ohtani was asked about his nerves ahead of his postseason debut, and it didn't take long for him to put those concerns to rest — in English, no less.

Well that settles that then. Of course, this is more or less what everyone says before they taste October baseball for the first time, and that sort of confidence is no guarantee of future success. It's one thing to say it at a press conference; it's quite another to keep that same energy when, say, you're down by six runs in the first inning, or when you come up with the tying run in scoring position in the ninth.

The fact is that we simply don't know how Ohtani will respond. Odds are good that he'll be nearly as great in the playoffs as he is during the regular season. But he just has to ask his teammate how regular-season and postseason reputations can diverge. Anything can happen in small-sample baseball, and for as transcendent and history-making as Ohtani has been thus far in his MLB career, much of his legacy is yet to be defined.