Dodgers Interview: Shohei on the Homer Record, Clayton’s Last Start

SEATTLE — The Dodgers wrapped the regular season with a 6–1 win on Sunday, and Shohei Ohtani walked off the field sounding equal parts grateful, locked-in, and hungry for more. He collected three hits, including his 55th home run—a new personal and team single-season mark—and then spent much of his postgame reflecting on Clayton Kershaw’s final regular-season start and the road immediately ahead.

First and foremost, Ohtani lingered on the privilege of watching Kershaw be Kershaw one more time. “It was such a great pitching performance that it makes you wonder if he’s really retiring,” Ohtani said. “It was truly that good, like he can still keep doing this.”

Kershaw gave the Dodgers 5.1 scoreless innings with the familiar mix: fastball spots, the slider’s late bite, and the trademark curve that seems to pause mid-air before tumbling into the zone. Ohtani’s words captured what the crowd felt: this wasn’t a ceremonial appearance; it was competitive, crisp, and powerful. The win fittingly turned into a celebration of the present and the past at once. Kershaw reminding everyone of his enduring brilliance, Ohtani supplying the thunder that has defined the Dodgers’ 2025.

That thunder reached another milestone Sunday. With his 55th homer, Ohtani set a new career high and pushed the franchise bar he already owned a little higher. He didn’t linger on the number, though. The focus, as ever, was team-first and forward-facing.

“If I can hit that many, it raises the team’s chances of winning,” he said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s good that, for today, I was able to update my personal best. But I’ll switch my mindset starting tomorrow and work hard toward the postseason.”

There’s a matter-of-fact steadiness to that answer that’s become Ohtani’s signature. He acknowledges the personal achievement, then immediately pivots to the only column that really matters at this time of year: wins. And while talk shows will debate what 55 means historically, Ohtani’s framing places it exactly where the clubhouse wants it, evidence that the offense is calibrated for October, not a finish-line ribbon to break and admire.

Even the made-for-TV subplot of the day (the possibility of a cycle) barely registered for him. Asked whether he was hunting it in his final trip, Ohtani shook it off. “I wasn’t thinking about anything like that,” he said. “Today, I just wanted to finish with a good feel for the postseason. In that sense, getting three hits lets me head into October with the right feel.”

That “feel” concept matters. It’s not just timing in the mechanical sense, but the broader rhythm of the game: pitch recognition, swing decisions, the confidence to trust the approach when every at-bat is magnified. A three-hit day to close the book on the regular season checks all those boxes. The Dodgers didn’t need heroics; they needed clean, repeatable at-bats and innings that translate to playoff baseball. They got them.

Of course, none of this locks in a champagne parade. The tournament is ruthless, and the math is simple: thirteen wins. That number came up directly in Ohtani’s comments, and he met it with a calm conviction.

“Yes,” he said when asked if this team can go all the way to 13. “We want to fight together as one until the very end. These three games in Seattle ended on a great note, and we want to carry this momentum into the postseason.”

The Seattle sweep (and the authoritative way Los Angeles finished it) is less a flex than a proof of concept: starters setting tone, the lineup producing layered pressure, and the bullpen buttoned up enough to bank leverage outs. Momentum in baseball is notoriously fickle, but form travels, and the Dodgers’ form in the final ten days looked like October baseball should.

The calendar turns now. The next swing means more; the next pitch can swing a series. But if Sunday was the last word on the regular season, it sounded exactly right: grateful for the past, grounded in the present, and locked on what’s next.

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