NEW YORK – Home runs sent Shohei Ohtani over home plate twice on Thursday.

Each time, the Dodgers slugger greeted fellow superstar Mookie Betts with the most common phrase in professional baseball: “Let’s go.”

In the first inning, Ohtani actually said the words, as encouragement, as a plan of attack. Moments earlier, the Los Angeles leadoff man had started NLCS Game 4 with aplomb, burning the second pitch he saw into the Mets’ bullpen for a 120-mph home run, the third-hardest hit playoff home run ever. Citi Field watched in cold silence as the Dodgers, already up 2-1 in the series, jumped out to an early lead.

Betts, who would finish second, waited for his teammate to float around the bases. Ohtani bounced his foot off the platter, gave Betts a high five and said these two clichéd, but occasionally meaningful words.

Five innings later, the scene played out again, in reverse order. With this go-around, Betts muted the crowd. With his Dodgers leading by three runs and the game still technically in the balance, Betts hit a home run of his own to the left field seats, giving LA a commanding 7-2 lead that it would not relinquish. Ohtani, fresh from a well-deserved walk, ran home just moments before Betts. The two high-fived again, and again Ohtani shouted, “Let’s go.”

But this time, Ohtani’s words carried an air of gleeful disbelief and comic disbelief. It was almost a laugh. There was plenty of reason for joy; Ohtani, who had never played in October before, knew he would soon have a single win in the World Series.

The Los Angeles MVP tandem carried the load in Game 4, which ended in laughter with the visitors winning 10-2. Ohtani and Betts scored seven of the team’s runs to put the Dodgers three games to one in this NLCS. Ohtani finished the night 1-for-3 with three walks. Betts went 4-for-6 with four RBI.

Thanks to them, the Dodgers get a taste of it.

“I’ve been trying to stay balanced and all that stuff.” Betts said after the match: “At a time like this, that doesn’t really work, so you just have to jump on the rollercoaster and enjoy the ride.”

But the Mets aren’t folding, at least not right away.

Third baseman Mark Vientos responded to Ohtani’s leadoff shot with a solo homer in the bottom of the first. And for a few innings, it looked like a ball game. Los Angeles hit two in the third off Mets lefty José Quintana, who allowed more runs (five) on Thursday than he had in the past eight weeks combined. New York struck back again, firing one over on a fielder’s choice by Brandon Nimmo at the bottom of the frame. The OMG Mets were in danger of sticking around.

But Quintana wasn’t having it. The Colombian left-hander gave up two more runs in the fourth on an RBI double by Betts. From then on the game trudged along until Betts broke it open in the sixth by hitting one to the moon. At that moment, all Ohtani could do was giggle with a “Let’s go!”

The two stars, whose contracts total $1.065 billion, took very different postseason paths to their night of shared dominance.

Betts is now familiar with the October stage. His Game 4 home run was the seventh of his playoff career and came in his 67th career playoff game. These days, the right fielder with the shiny dome is undeniably comfortable under the brightest lights, but it wasn’t always that way. Betts didn’t make a mistake in his first 97 postseason appearances with the Red Sox — until he took Clayton Kershaw deep in Game 5 of the 2018 World Series.

Ohtani accomplished that feat much more quickly, hitting a long ball in his second-ever at-bat in October. While this is all new for the Japanese superstar, who endured six fruitless seasons as Angel in Anaheim, he is obviously no stranger to the brightest lights. His first handful of playoff games after that initial cacophonous explosion produced shaky results. Before his appearance on Thursday, Ohtani was hitless with the bases empty and 7-for-9 with runners in scoring position this postseason.

The oddity was just that; Ohtani remains a formidable force no matter the occasion. And on Friday, the Mets will have to deal with him and Betts at least a few more times. The New York club’s unlikely trajectory has at times been fueled by an irrational level of self-confidence. Often these Mets didn’t know when they were beaten, so they just came back and won.

Maybe there’s another twist in this story, but things feel different from here on out. Mets hitters look tired. The bullpen, overmatched and undermanned, can’t figure it out, and the 43,882 who fought a sharp, cold night seemed resigned to the fate of their beloved club.

After the game, a Mets clubhouse attendant wheeled a basket of items from the dugout to the locker room. Inside the container were a pair of gloves, a bat and the huge plastic “OMG” sign the team has used as a totem after home runs. If New York can’t pull off a turnaround on Friday, that handler could take the board all the way to storage.

Ohtani and Betts hope that will be the case.

The two represent the overwhelming power of this Dodgers roster. Often times, playoff baseball is about the little things: platoon advantages, bullpen game plans, a surprise hero or two. Teams scout each other relentlessly, looking for the smallest potential edge. Games are broken down by pitch and hyper-analyzed under a microscope.

But on Thursday, Los Angeles reminded everyone that having two of the game’s best players is also a damn good strategy.