NEW YORK (AP) — Shohei Ohtani homered against Jose Quintana on Thursday night in the opening game of Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, giving the Los Angeles Dodgers a lead over the New York Mets.

Ohtani took Quintana’s first pitch for a ball and then hit a sinker over the middle of the plate, 450 feet into the Mets’ bullpen in right-center field for his third postseason homer.

This gave Ohtani home runs on consecutive swings after his three-run shot off Tylor Megill in the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ 8-0 victory Wednesday night gave Los Angeles a 2-1 series lead.

The likely NL MVP started the night 0 for 22 in the postseason when he hit with no one on base and 7 for 9 with two home runs and eight RBIs when he hit with runners on board.

It was the seventh leadoff homer in Dodgers postseason history. The 199.8 mph drive was the third-hardest hit home run since Statcast began tracking in 2015, behind Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber in last year’s NLCS (199.7 mph) and Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees in a 2020 AL Division Series (198.3 km/h). ).

Quintana had not allowed a home run in his eight previous starts since August 20.

Mets star Francisco Lindor, who hit a leadoff home run in Game 2 at Dodger Stadium, couldn’t match Ohtani in the bottom of the first when he grounded out.

But the next New York batter, Mark Vientos, made contact Yoshinobu Yamamoto for his fourth homer of the playoffs, tying the score at 1-all.

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