Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani sent a pitch to the upper deck in right field at Citi Field on Wednesday night as he helped the team take a 2-1 National League Championship Series lead.

Ohtani’s three-run home run in the eighth inning helped balloon the score to 7-0 against the New York Mets. The Dodgers won 8-0.

Those watching the game at home were mesmerized by the dinger, baseball great Roger Clemens among them.

Clemens had a two-word reaction to the shot on X.

“Good grief,” he wrote.

Ohtani was 1-for-4 with three RBI and a strikeout. It was his second home run of the series.

“It’s definitely a blessing. I can’t be thankful enough that I’ve had the opportunity to play enough games to be able to accrue those numbers,” said Max Muncy, who hit another homer in the ninth.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani celebrates his three-run home run against the New York Mets during the eighth inning in Game 3 of the NL Championship Series on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in New York City. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

DODGERS MANAGER PRAISES WALKER BUEHLER’S NLCS OUTING AFTER PRIOR STRUGGLES IN RETURN FROM TOMMY JOHN SURGERY

The Dodgers got the job done behind four innings from Walker Buehler, who struck out six batters. Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier, Blaker Treinen and Ben Casparius finished out the latter innings. Los Angeles shut out New York for the second time in the series.

Los Angeles tagged Mets starter Luis Severino for two runs – none of them earned – in 4 2/3 innings. Then, the team pounded on Reed Garrett and Tylor Megill.

“We got beat 9-0 the first game, then we came back and won Game 2. I don’t see why we can’t come back and do that tomorrow,” Garrett said after the game.

Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith, #16, and pitcher Ben Casparius, #78, celebrate their win against the New York Mets in Game 3 of the NL Championship Series on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in New York City. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Game 4 is set for Thursday night at 8:08 p.m. ET.

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This could be the night the Dodgers truly reap a return on investment.

Not in the gift shop. Not in advertising sales. Not in international tourism. That is all secondary to the product on the field.

The Dodgers lavished a billion dollars upon Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for moments like these. If they win Thursday, with Yamamoto pitching and Ohtani sparking the offense, the Dodgers will be one victory from the World Series.

“If those two guys are going, it’s going to be tough,” Dodgers infielder Max Muncy said.

For the New York Mets, he meant, as if the Dodgers have not been tough enough on the Mets in this National League Championship Series. The series lead — 2-1, in favor of the Dodgers — does not feel nearly as imposing as the the series itself.

The Dodgers’ two wins: 9-0 in the opener, 8-0 on Wednesday. They lead all postseason teams in home runs, including a mammoth shot from Ohtani in his last at-bat Wednesday.

Ohtani took all the pressure off the Dodgers’ bullpen, turning a 4-0 lead into a 7-0 lead in the eighth inning, following a walk to Will Smith and a single by Kiké Hernández with an upper-deck home run.

“Runners packed the bases in that inning and created a good flow,” Ohtani told Japanese broadcaster NHK.

The flow of thought surrounding Ohtani has not been peaceful. He is batting .226 in the postseason, and he is 0 for 22 without runners on base.

If you are a concerned Dodgers fan, Mookie Betts would like to encourage you to chill.

“I have no idea why people are talking about Shohei,” Betts said. “He’s the best player on the field, every day. There is no need to worry about him.

“He hasn’t got a hit? Who cares? You know what I’m saying? It’s Shohei Ohtani. Everybody knows who he is. Every time he steps in the box, everybody expects something good to happen. I think that’s the problem. He’s done it so many times that you expect it. He’s a human for 20 at-bats.

“It’s Shohei. It’s fine.”

And Yamamoto?

“His stuff is good. His head is good,” Betts said. “Everything is good.”

Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ backup catcher, played for Team Mexico in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. He saw up close and personal what Ohtani and Yamamoto can do in a big game.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during the first inning in Game 5 of the NLDS against the San Diego Padres on Oct. 11.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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With a berth in the championship game at stake, Ohtani and Yamamoto led Japan to a comeback victory over Mexico. Ohtani scored the first run and the tying run for Japan — the latter after leading off the ninth inning with a double — and Yamamoto came out of the bullpen and held Mexico at bay until Japan rallied from an early three-run deficit.

“They are special talents, obviously,” Barnes said. “They are a big part of our team. They don’t have to put pressure on themselves to be anything more than they are. We have a really good team around them.

“Obviously, Shohei is one of the best players in baseball, but he doesn’t have to do everything. There should be some freedom in that, I feel like.

“Yoshi is a big-game pitcher, and his stuff makes him one of the best pitchers in the world. I’m excited to see what he does.”

The start date of the World Series this year depends on whether the championship series in each league extends beyond five games. If Yamamoto does well Thursday, and if either the NLCS or ALCS lasts at least six games, he could be in line to start Game 1 of the World Series.

Think about that: The Dodgers signed one of the best pitchers in the world to a record contract for a pitcher, and he could return the favor in his first year by starting Game 1 of the World Series. You can sell all the $174.99 jerseys you want, but the real return on investment is a spot in the Fall Classic.

ST. LOUIS – Marc-Andre Fleury, wearing his black Wild baseball cap backward, had a front-row seat to history Tuesday night, but he was the one who planted the seed in Filip Gustavsson’s head in the first place.

Then, as if Fleury diagramed the play for his goalie partner himself, the St. Louis Blues’ Pavel Buchnevich cooperated fully with a perfectly placed 79-foot shot directly toward the Wild logo at the center of Gustavsson’s chest.

Gustavsson caught the puck with his trapper for his 27th save, dropped it in his blue crease, took aim and sailed a beauty the length of the ice for a bull’s-eye — the final goal in a 4-1 Wild win.

It was the first goalie goal in team history and Gustavsson is the 15th goaltender in NHL regular season history to score a goalie goal.

“That was unexpected,” goalie coach Freddy Chabot said at the press elevator after the game.

“That was awesome,” general manager Bill Guerin said. “You don’t see a goalie goal every day.”

“A power-play goal,” pointed out assistant GM Michael Murray.

GOALIE GOAL! GOALIE GOAL! GOALIE GOAL! 🚨 pic.twitter.com/NS3CsKb9ge

— NHL (@NHL) October 16, 2024

With 34 seconds left in the Blues’ home opener and St. Louis trying to kill a double minor, coach Drew Bannister called timeout seeking a miracle with his team down two.

Fleury had other plans.

“I called a quick goalie meeting,” Fleury said, laughing.

Gustavsson skated over to the bench and got some advice from the wise future Hall of Famer.

“Flower looked up to the board and was like, ‘We’re up two goals. You should probably try it if you get the chance. You’re shooting, right?’” Gustavsson recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe I should.’”

Gustavsson had never scored a goal at any level of hockey. He’d never consider it with a one-goal lead because if he missed, it would be an icing and an offensive-zone faceoff for the Blues.

“Up 2-nothing, I was like, ‘Yeah, if I get the chance, I’ll try it,’” Gustavsson said.

And then he got his chance.

Gustavsson figures Buchnevich was shooting the puck directly at him so he’d catch it, freeze it and give the Blues a late faceoff. But instead, Buchnevich “just put it straight in the glove and I tried and put it down as quick as I could,” Gustavsson said. “It just laid perfect there on the ice, and I just try and shoot it as hard as I could.”

As Fleury said, “Textbook.”

Celebrating the first goalie goal in @mnwild history! 🤩 pic.twitter.com/X5ciE7FTea

— NHL (@NHL) October 16, 2024

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Chabot, the Wild’s goalie coach of five seasons, likes to do fun things with his goaltenders in practice.

One of the coolest looking is when he’ll have one goalie stand directly in front of the other to set one ginormous screen. Chabot will then whistle dead-accurate shots to the left, then to the right, then back to the left … over and over and over again on either side of the screening goalie so the one in the crease has to fight to find the puck.

But the most fun drill he conducts is goalie goals.

Former Wild goalie Kaapo Kahkonen was a goalie goal machine in his native Finland. Current Wild prospect Jesper Wallstedt, a fellow Swede like Gustavsson, has scored goalie goals, too, including with Iowa in the AHL.

“I expected that from Wally,” Chabot said. “Not Gus.”

What shocked Chabot the most was that he has never seen Gustavsson in any of their practices shoot the puck as high as he did.

“I usually complain about my curve not being the right angle to get it that high,” Gustavsson said. “But I don’t know, extra powers or something.”

Most cool, according to ESPN, this was the third power-play goal by a goalie in NHL history (Evgeni Nabokov in 2002 and Martin Brodeur in 2013). He’s the second Swede to ever score a goalie goal, according to NHL Stats (Linus Ullmark in 2023).

Hilariously, Guerin walked into the locker room to congratulate Gustavsson, then asked Fleury if he had ever scored one. Fleury knew full well his former Penguins teammate knew he had not, then cracked up and threw a towel at the Wild boss.

After he scored, Gustavsson was mobbed by his teammates on the ice — Brock Faber, Jonas Brodin, Marcus Foligno, Yakov Trenin and Marat Khusnutdinov.

Jakub Lauko’s first Wild goal is a shorthanded beauty. 2-0 #mnwild pic.twitter.com/gLS19TpTcs

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) October 16, 2024

Jakub Lauko, who scored the game-winning short-handed goal in the second period for his first goal with the Wild, wanted to join the pile from the bench. There were only nine seconds left in the game, but he figured it was against the rules and decided to stay put.

Luckily for him, Gustavsson skated to the bench and did a fist-bump flyby with his blocker. The first person he greeted was a smiling, proud Fleury.

“Props to him,” Lauko said. “It’s pretty impressive, and he deserves it. It would have been nicer at home, with a full barn, but you know it’s an incredible moment. I’m just happy for him.”

Gustavsson’s goal was the Wild’s fourth power-play goal of the season. He joked that he wanted to help push the power play over 20 percent, but he actually pushed it to 30.8 percent.

“Should probably be in the power play meetings now,” Gustavsson said.

Wild coach John Hynes has seen a goalie goal before. While coaching Nashville, Pekka Rinne scored one in Chicago.

“It was one of my first couple games in Nashville,” he recalled. “But it was almost very similar to Gus’s. It was kind of a six-on-five situation and kind of dumped in on the goalie and he had time to be able to do it and you could tell both guys … were going for it. Great to see.”

With the Wild playing seven defensemen and not playing again until in Columbus on Saturday, Kirill Kaprizov logged 27:59 of ice time — the second-most in his NHL career. According to ESPN, it was the sixth-most by a forward who had no shots in a game since 2000-01.

But Kaprizov was terrific, having two beautiful assists on goals by Ryan Hartman and Marco Rossi. He leads 2-0-2 Minnesota, which hasn’t trailed in any game, with six points.

Kaprizov has one goal, however, and volunteered that he’s tied in goals with the Wild’s No. 1 goalie: “Same (number of) goals like a lot of guys.”

“It’s probably not gonna be for long,” Gustavsson said.

The irony about Tuesday is before the season, it’s believed the Wild had the Blues game slated for Wallstedt’s season debut. But the Wild are inundated with injuries to Joel Eriksson Ek, Jared Spurgeon and Marcus Johansson, so Wallstedt had to be sent to Iowa to make room for callup Daemon Hunt. Plus, Gustavsson is playing so well, they need Wallstedt to get some practices and game action somewhere and right now it can’t be Minnesota.

The Wild want to get Wallstedt more games in the NHL this season than the three he got last year, but the name of the game is winning and if Gustavsson keeps racking up victories, he should get the bulk of the playing time.

If the Wild want to get back into the playoffs this season, they need the “Gus Bus” to look and play like the goalie of two years ago who finished with the second-best save percentage and goals-against average in the NHL and not the one that floundered last season to a sub-.900 save percentage.

So far in three starts, he’s 2-0-1 with a 1.66 goals-against average and .948 save percentage. He worked hard this offseason, came back to Minnesota in tip-top shape and has improved upon his practice habits.

“I don’t think I do anything special out there,” he said. “(I’m not) flashy. Obviously, I make some bigger saves, but that’s usually when you’re out of position. I just try to be in the right position most of the time and make boring saves. And I think that’s been working very good so far.”

Good, like in the second period after Lauko’s short-handed goal where he preserved a 2-0 lead by sprawling across his crease to rob Jordan Kyrou.

“Obviously we all know at the end of last year (Gustavsson) wasn’t happy and no one was happy with what had gone on,” Hynes said. “He put some hard work in this summer and he’s come back in I think the right mindset and learned his lessons from last year and now he’s come in and he’s playing real solid and you need that.

“Early in the year sometimes it’s tough to win if you don’t get strong goaltending because the games are a little bit scattered as everyone’s trying to get used to the NHL pace, there’s sometimes breakdowns, systems aren’t totally dialed in where they need to be so when you can get really quality goaltending early, it gives you the best chance to win.”

Goalie goals help, too.

Gus making Wild history 👏 pic.twitter.com/lnjSeLQikN

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 16, 2024

(Photo: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)