Shohei Ohtani is not like any other baseball player.

This isn’t about the fact that he’s a two-way player when healthy, or about his combination of power and speed that produced the sport’s first 50-homer, 50-steal season.

This is about how he deals with career-defining moments.

What’s at stake for his team. The consequences for his legacy. The tens of thousands of people watching in person, and the millions more around the world. The responsibility to project the virtues of an entire culture.

Other players do their best to block such thoughts or use them as fuel to increase their adrenaline levels. Ohtani called them “ingredients to increase focus.”

Reflecting on his seventh-inning single that produced the go-ahead run in a 7-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Thursday that secured the Dodgers their most recent division title, Ohtani described himself as being in a trance-like state.

“I was too focused on a place that I didn’t really think about nervously,” he said in Japanese.

Notice what Ohtani said. He wasn’t just focused. That was him at focused.

Whatever he felt or thought, the result was predictable. With two men on base and one out, Ohtani singled to right field against left-handed reliever Tanner Scott to drive in Kiké Hernández and put the Dodgers ahead, 3-2.

“Actually, all I was thinking about was getting hit,” Ohtani said.

Ohtani also drove in the decisive run the previous day in a 4–3 victory over the Padres, in which a loss would have cut the Dodgers’ lead over their second-place rivals to one game. Thanks to their head-to-head record, the Padres held the tiebreaker over the Dodgers, meaning they would have won the division had they finished with the same regular season record.

“No moment ever seems too big for him,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “When he steps into the box, you have the feeling that he is going to do something special. I say it all the time: he doesn’t disappoint. He’s incredible.”

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That’s why the Dodgers can’t be counted out in October. Finally, in his seventh Major League season, Ohtani will make his first appearance on the postseason stage.

The Dodgers do not have the pitching normally required to win a World Series. This alone would make most teams no longer serious contenders for the championship, but how can a team with Ohtani not be a serious contender?

“I think there are people who run from it when the moment gets big,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Other guys embrace it and Shohei has embraced these moments better than any player I’ve ever seen.”

In a sport where greater effort often produces worse results, Ohtani strikes practically on command.

That’s what he did on Sunday in a comeback win over the Colorado Rockies. The Dodgers were three outs shy of their lead over the Padres, which was cut to two games when Ohtani led off the ninth inning with a tying home run. Mookie Betts hit a walk-off homer in the next at bat.

Ohtani also did that last year when he played for Japan in the World Baseball Classic. His team trailed Mexico in the ninth inning of their semifinal, Ohtani started the comeback with a leadoff double.

“I decided I was going to get on base no matter what,” Ohtani said, as if that was a choice.

Japan won the tournament.

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“You can clearly see how much he cares about winning,” left-hander Clayton Kershaw said. “It’s really nice to see the energy, especially in the bigger games we’ve seen recently. He really, really wants to (win) and gets excited about the possibility of things after the season, which is great.

Over the course of this season, Kershaw got a behind-the-scenes look at how Ohtani created his magic on the field.

“Just watching him, I appreciate how diligent he is,” Kershaw said. “He never looks, says or feels like he’s tired. Every day is the same. He’s doing his rehabilitation. He does his warm-up, he does his workout, he hits, he does his stuff, steals bases, hits home runs and the next day is exactly the same. I just appreciate consistency. I appreciate attention to detail and care. He does. He does that really well, better than most.”

When closer Michael Kopech forced Kyle Higashioka to show up for the finale on Thursday night, Ohtani let his guard down for a moment.

He laughed in the clubhouse as his teammates plied him with cheap sparkling wine and beer. He drank a bottle of Budweiser on Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s head and poured another bottle on his back.

“It was the best,” Ohtani said. “I want to do my best so I can do it again and again.”

The only other time Ohtani dumped alcohol on teammates after a season performance like this was as a 22-year-old player with the Nippon-Ham Fighters.

That party was nothing like this.

Not wanting to soak the locker room carpets with alcohol, Japanese baseball teams host their clinching parties off the field, usually a few hours after the last pitch. Only beer is used, no champagne or sparkling wine. In the case of the 2016 Fighters, they celebrated their Japan Series win in an underground hotel parking lot in Hiroshima.

The next day, one of the country’s leading sports newspapers posted a photo of Ohtani wearing goggles on his forehead as he poured a bottle of Sapporo onto a teammate’s head. Literally and figuratively, he towered over everyone around him.

Eight years later, in the most competitive baseball league in the world, Ohtani once again towers over his contemporaries. He thinks he will grow in stature in the coming weeks. The play-offs are about to start.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.