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Two days ago, Shohei Ohtani rolled into Dodger Stadium as a man on a mission.

After struggling for the previous couple weeks — mired in a postseason slump that had raised questions about everything from his out-of-sync swing mechanics to the physical toll of his two-way duties — the soon-to-be four-time MVP decided it was time to change something up.

Over the previous seven games, going back to the start of the National League Division Series, the $700-million man had looked nothing like himself. Ohtani had two hits in 25 at-bats. He’d recorded 12 strikeouts and plenty more puzzling swing decisions. And he seemed, in the estimation of some around the team, unusually perturbed as public criticisms of his play started to mount.

So, during the team’s off-day workout Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, ahead of Game 3 of the NL Championship Series, Ohtani informed the club’s hitting coaches he wanted to take batting practice on the field.

It was a change from his normal routine — and signaled his growing urgency to get back on track.

“If this was a regular-season situation and you’re looking at an expanse of small sample — eight, nine games, whatever it might be — he probably wouldn’t be out on the field,” manager Dave Roberts said later.

But “with the urgency [of] the postseason,” the manager continued, Ohtani “wanted to make an adjustment on his own.”

Whatever Ohtani found that day, evidently (and resoundingly) clicked. He led off Game 3 with a triple. He entered Game 4 looking more comfortable with his swing. And then, in one of the incredible individual displays ever witnessed in playoff history, he lifted the Dodgers straight into the World Series.

In a 5-1 defeat of the Milwaukee Brewers that completed an NLCS sweep and gave the Dodgers their 26th pennant in franchise history, Ohtani hit three home runs as a hitter, and struck out 10 batters over six-plus scoreless innings as a pitcher.

Shohei Ohtani pitches during Game 4 of the NLCS against the Brewers. Ohtani struck out 10 over six scoreless innings for the Dodgers.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

He made his previously disappointing playoffs a suddenly forgotten memory, earning NLCS MVP honors and to the astonished amazement of all 52,883 in attendance.

And he delivered the kind of game the baseball world dreamed about when the two-way phenom first arrived from Japan, fulfilling the prophecy that accompanied him as a near-mythical prospect eight years earlier.

Back then, Ohtani’s 100-mph fastball and wicked off-speed repertoire had tantalized evaluators. His majestic left-handed swing had tortured pitchers in his home country.

Not since Babe Ruth had the sport seen anything like him.

There were some early growing pains (and injuries) during his transition to the majors. But over the last five years, he blossomed in the game’s definitive face.

A look at the three home runs Shohei Ohtani hit in Game 4 of the NLCS on Friday.

All that had been missing, in a resume chock full of MVPs and All-Star selections and unthinkable records even “The Great Bambino” never produced, was a signature performance in October. A game in which he dominated on the mound, thrilled at the plate, and single-handedly transformed a game on the sport’s biggest stage.

During that Wednesday workout this week, Ohtani got himself ready for one, stepping into the cage during his on-field batting practice — as his walk-up song played through the stadium speakers and teammates gathered near the dugout in curious anticipation — and swatting one home run after another, including one that soared to the roof of the right-field pavilion.

On Friday, in an almost unimaginable showcase of his unprecedented talents, he managed to do exactly the same thing.

After stranding a leadoff walk in the top of the first with three-straight strikeouts, Ohtani switched from pitcher to hitter and unleashed a hellacious swing. Brewers starter José Quintana left him an inside slurve. Ohtani turned it into the first leadoff home run ever by a pitcher (in the regular season or playoffs). The ball traveled 446 feet. It landed high up the right-field stands.

Three more scoreless innings of pitching work later, Ohtani came back to the plate and hit his second home run of the night even farther. In a swing almost identical to his titanic BP drive two days prior, he launched a ball that darn near clipped the pavilion roof again, a 469-foot moonshot that landed in the concourse above the seats in right.

Somehow, there was still plenty more to come.

With the Dodgers up 4-0 at that point, Ohtani then did his best work as a pitcher, following up two strikeouts that stranded a leadoff double in the fourth — and had him excitedly fist-pumping off the mound — with two more in both the fifth and the sixth.

His fastball was humming up to triple-digits. His sweeper and cutter were keeping the Brewers off balance. His splitter wasn’t touched once any of the five times they tried to swing at it.

Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting his third home run of the game against the Brewers in Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Anything he did immediately became magic.

Ohtani’s loudest roar came in the bottom of the seventh, after his pitching start had ended on a walk and a single led off the top half of the inning.

For the third time, he flung his bat at a pitch over the plate. He sent a fly ball sailing deep in a mild autumn night. He rounded the bases as landed beyond the center field fence.

Three home runs. Six immaculate innings. A tour de force that sent the Dodgers to the World Series.

All of it, just two days removed from Ohtani being seemingly at his lowest.

All of it, when the baseball world was most closely watching.

Dodgers players and coaches celebrate after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

At 5:37 p.m. Wednesday, Michael Buble’s “Feeling Good” blared from the Dodger Stadium speakers.

Shohei Ohtani came strolling to the plate with a bat in his hands.

There was no one in the stands, of course. Nor an opposing pitcher on the mound. The Dodgers, on this workout day after returning from Milwaukee, were still some 22 hours away from resuming their National League Championship Series against the Brewers. For any other player, it would have been a routine affair.

Ohtani, however, is not just any player.

And among the many things that make him unique, his habit of almost never taking batting practice on the field is one of the small but notable ones.

Which made his decision to do so Wednesday a telling development.

Over the last two weeks, Ohtani has been in a slump. Since the start of the NL Division Series, he is just two-for-25 with a whopping 12 strikeouts. He has been smothered by left-handed pitching. He has made poor swing decisions and failed to slug the ball.

Last week, manager Dave Roberts went so far as to say the Dodgers were “not gonna win the World Series with that sort of performance” from their $700-million slugger.

Thus, out Ohtani came for batting practice on Wednesday in the most visible sign yet of his urgency for a turnaround.

“The other way to say it is that, if I hit, we will win,” Ohtani said in Japanese when asked about Roberts’ World Series quote earlier Wednesday afternoon. “I think he thinks that if I hit, we will win. I’d like to do my best to do that.”

In Roberts’ view, Ohtani has already started improving from his woeful NLDS, when he struck out nine times in 18 trips to the plate against a left-handed-heavy Philadelphia Phillies staff that, as president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman emphatically put it, had “the most impressive execution against a hitter I’ve ever seen.”

In Game 1 of the NLCS against the Brewers, Ohtani was 0-for-two but walked three times; twice intentionally but another on a more disciplined five-pitch at-bat to lead off the game against left-handed opener Aaron Ashby.

The following night, he went only one-for-five with three more strikeouts, giving him 15 this postseason, second-most in the playoffs. But he did have an RBI single, marking his first run driven in since Game 2 of the NLDS. He followed that with a steal, swiping his first bag of the playoffs. And earlier in the game, he scorched a lineout to right at 115.2 mph, the hardest he’d hit a ball since taking Cincinnati Reds pitcher Hunter Greene deep in the team’s postseason opener.

“The first two games in Milwaukee, his at-bats have been fantastic,” Roberts said Wednesday, before heading out to the field and watching Ohtani’s impromptu BP session.

“That’s what I’ve been looking for. That’s what I’m counting on,” he added, while noting the careful approach the Brewers have also taken with the soon-to-be four-time MVP. “You can only take what they give you. So for me, I think he’s in a good spot right now.”

Shohei Ohtani puts the ball in play in the third inning during Game 4 of the NLDS.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani’s overall numbers, of course, continue to suggest otherwise. His .147 postseason batting average is second-worst on the team, ahead of only Andy Pages. His seven-game drought without an extra-base hit is longer than any he endured in the regular season.

“The first thing I have to do is increase the level of my at-bats,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “Swing at strikes and not swing at balls.”

On Wednesday, Ohtani’s slump also led to questions about his role as a two-way player, and whether his return to pitching this season (and, this October, doing it for the first time in the playoffs) has contributed to his sudden struggles at the plate.

After all, on days Ohtani pitched this season, he hit .222 with four home runs but 21 strikeouts. On the days immediately following an outing, he batted .147 with two home runs and 10 strikeouts.

His current slump began with a hitless, four-strikeout dud in Game 1 of the NLDS, when he also made a six-inning, three-run start on the mound.

And in days since, Roberts has acknowledged some likely correlation between Ohtani’s two roles.

“[His offense] hasn’t been good when he’s pitched,” Roberts said following the NLDS. “We’ve got to think through this and come up with a better game plan.”

Ohtani, on the other hand, pushed back somewhat on that narrative during Wednesday’s workout, in which he also threw a bullpen session in preparation for his next start in Game 4 of the NLCS on Friday.

While it is “more physically strenuous” to handle both roles, he conceded, he countered that “I don’t know if there’s a direct correlation.”

“Physically,” he added, “I don’t feel like there’s a connection.”

Instead, Ohtani on Wednesday went about fixing his swing the way any other normal hitter would. He went out on the field for his rare session of batting practice. Of his 32 swings, he sent 14 over the fence, including one that clanked off the roof of the right-field pavilion.

“Certainly, there’s frustration,” Roberts said of how he’s seen Ohtani handle his uncharacteristic lack of performance.

But, he added, “that’s expected. I don’t mind it. I like the edge.”

“He’s obviously a very, very talented player, and we’re counting on him,” Roberts continued. “He’s just a great competitor. He’s very prepared. And there’s still a lot of baseball left.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he would be scoreboard watching on Sunday afternoon.

But he insisted he didn’t care how things played out.

His team, of course, had already been locked in as the National League’s No. 3 seed, set to host a best-of-three wild card series at Dodger Stadium starting Tuesday.

What wasn’t clear until the end of play on Sunday, however, was whether the Dodgers would be facing the Cincinnati Reds or New York Mets to open the postseason.

“I honestly don’t really care, I really don’t,” Roberts said. “I think the way we’re playing right now, it doesn’t matter who we play.”

In a photo finish for the NL’s final wild-card berth, it was the Reds who earned the final ticket to the postseason, clinching in spite of their Sunday loss to the Milwaukee Brewers thanks to the Mets’ defeat in Miami at the hand of the Marlins.

Thus, it will be the Reds coming to Chavez Ravine this week, trying to halt the Dodgers’ defense of last year’s championship.

“It’s a gritty group. It’s a hungry group. It’s certainly a younger group,” Roberts said after the matchup was set. “These guys are going to be coming in to win a series. They’re feeling really good about themselves. So we’ve got to focus on ourselves and take it to them.”

Here are nine things to know about the Reds ahead of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday at 6:08 p.m. (ESPN):

Nico Hoerner had an RBI double against former teammate Kyle Hendricks and the Chicago Cubs beat the Angels 4-3 Sunday to complete a three-game series sweep.

Hoerner and Matt Shaw each had two hits in backing right-hander Jameson Taillon (9-6), who allowed one run in five innings as the Cubs improved to 8-2 in winning their third straight series. Right-hander Daniel Palencia worked out of a ninth-inning jam for his 20th save.

Taylor Ward hit his 30th homer for the Angels, who fell to 2-7 since a three-game sweep of the Dodgers.

Hendricks (6-9) gave up four runs on five hits over 4⅓ innings with three walks and two strikeouts in his first start against his former club. He joined the Angels this season after 11 seasons with Chicago, where he played a key role in their 2016 World Series title.

Ward reached 30 homers for the first time in his career with a first-inning blast for a 1-0 lead.

Kyle Tucker had a game-tying RBI single in the third inning and Hoerner had his run-scoring double in the fourth. The Cubs chased Hendricks in the fifth when they got a sacrifice fly from Pete Crow-Armstrong and an RBI single from Carson Kelly for a 4-1 lead.

The Angels pulled within a run in the sixth on an RBI double by Ward and a run-scoring grounder by Luis Rengifo.

Key moment: After he walked the go-ahead run with one out in the ninth, Palencia struck out rookie Christian Moore on a full-count, 99.9-mph fastball, then ended it with a strikeout of Bryce Teodoso.

Key stat: Tucker went five for 12 with three home runs and seven RBIs in the series, after he was given a three-game rest against Milwaukee last week,

Up next: Angels RHP Jose Soriano (8-9, 4.00 ERA) will face Texas on Monday.

Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a tie-breaking homer in the ninth inning and Kyle Tucker went deep for the first time in more than a month as the Chicago Cubs beat the Angels 3-2 on Friday night to open a nine-game trip.

Crow-Armstrong connected for a solo shot off Kenley Jansen (5-4) with one out, his 28th home run this season and first in his last 25 games.

Tucker also ended a 25-game drought with a solo drive off Tyler Anderson in the first — his first longball since July 19.

Yoán Moncada homered twice for the Angels, including a tying shot in the seventh. It was his first multihomer game with the Angels (61-67).

Javier Assad allowed one run in six innings for the Cubs (74-55) after being recalled from triple-A Iowa before the game. He took a no-hitter into the fifth before Moncada homered.

Brad Keller (4-1) pitched a perfect eighth and Daniel Palencia struck out two in a 1-2-3 ninth for his 19th save.

Anderson permitted two runs and three hits in five innings with five strikeouts and two walks. He’s gone 21 straight starts without a win.

Key moment: Crow-Armstrong was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts when he stepped to the plate in the ninth, but he got a 92 mph cutter over the heart of the plate from Jansen and sent it 396 feet into the right-field stands.

Key stat: Tucker’s 25-game home-run drought was his longest since his rookie season in 2018.

Up next: Angels RHP Victor Mederos (0-1, 5.54 ERA) faces Cubs RHP Cade Horton (7-4, 3.08) on Saturday in a matchup of rookie starters.

The Little League team from Honolulu has a chance to become a three-time world champion.

Winners of the Little League World Series in 2018 and 2022, the team from Hawaii earned a spot in this year’s World Series on Thursday night with a 4-1 win over Fullerton Golden Hill in San Bernardino. They will travel to Williamsport, Pa., where the World Series begins on Wednesday.

Golden Hill’s only two losses came from Honolulu, including a 1-0 loss to start the tournament. It was the first time in the league’s 69-year history that a team had advanced to the West Region final.

Pitcher Bronson Fermahin took advantage of his team scoring three runs in the first two innings by throwing lots of strikes. He had eight strikeouts through the first four innings and finished with 11 in 5 ⅔ innings before Golden Hill pushed across a run with two outs in the sixth.

Fullerton Golden Hill pitcher Lincoln Ploog struck out 10 in a loss.

(Craig Weston)

Lincoln Ploog of Golden Hill was brought in to pitch with two outs in the first inning. He hit three batters but finished with 10 strikeouts in 4 ⅓ innings.

Honolulu scored two runs in the first on an RBI single from Evan Crawford and a bases-loaded hit batter. An RBI double in the second by Kuana Payanal provided a 3-0 lead. Mason Mitani hit a home run in the fifth. Golden Hill scored a run in the sixth. Fermahin had to leave because of pitch count with two outs in the sixth. Mitani came in to get the final out, catching a broken-bat line drive.

Golden Hill showed off two future standouts in Ploog and infielder Gavin Janicke, who came in with four hits in eight at-bats. Janicke struck out 14 in a win on Wednesday and wasn’t eligible to pitch Thursday.

Jo Adell hit a two-run homer, Yusei Kikuchi surrendered four hits in six innings and the Angels beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 on Monday night.

The Rays (55-59) struck in the opening inning when Yandy Díaz doubled to right and scored on Junior Caminero’s sacrifice fly to center field. Kikuchi (5-7) escaped without further damage and finished with seven strikeouts and two walks.

Angels pitchers combined for 12 strikeouts.

Yoán Moncada reached on a fielder’s choice for the Angels in the second inning before Adell launched a 428-foot homer to left-center off Adrian Houser (6-3), putting the Angels (55-58) ahead 2-1.

The Angels made it 4-1 in the third inning on Taylor Ward‘s two-run single. Bryce Teodosio doubled in the sixth and Zach Neto drove him in with a double of his own that put the Angels up 5-1.

Ward and Teodosio both had three hits.

Houser worked 5⅔ innings, yielding 11 hits and five runs while striking out three.

Christopher Morel finished 0 for 4 with four strikeouts for the Rays.

Key moment: Nolan Schanuel was hit by a pitch, and Mike Trout doubled to left field to open the third inning. Ward followed with a single to center that drove both runners in and gave the Angels a three-run lead.

Key stat: Ward and Teodosio both had three hits.

Up next: The Rays and Angels face off again Tuesday night. RHP Ryan Pepiot (6-9, 3.80 ERA) is expected to start for Tampa Bay against RHP José Soriano (7-8, 3.65 ERA) for Angels.

Mike Trout hit a two-run homer in a four-run fifth inning to reach 1,000 career RBIs, and the Angels beat the Seattle Mariners 4-1 on Sunday.

Kyle Hendricks (6-7) gave up one run on two hits over six-plus innings and Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth for his 18th save as the Angels earned a split of the four-game series.

Cal Raleigh hit his major league-leading 41st home run for the Mariners.

The Angels broke a scoreless tie when Kevin Newman’s grounder brought home Travis d’Arnaud in the fifth. Luis Rengifo then scored on Logan Gilbert’s wild pitch.

Trout crushed a 443-foot drive to center field off Gilbert to give him 1,001 RBIs. It was his 397th career homer and 19th this season.

Raleigh connected against Hendricks in the seventh, his second home run in two nights and fourth this year against Los Angeles.

Hendricks, who had one walk and three strikeouts, won for the first time since June 17.

Gilbert (3-4) gave up four runs and three hits over five innings with seven strikeouts.

Key moment: Angels center fielder Jo Adell kept Seattle off the scoreboard in the sixth when he reached above the wall to take away a home run from J.P. Crawford.

Key stat: Trout became the third player to get his first 1,000 RBIs entirely in an Angels uniform, following Garret Anderson and Tim Salmon.

Up next: Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz (3-9, 6.03) is expected to start Monday against Texas.

Tyler Glasnow’s problems have been the same for years.

Spending too much time caught up in his own head, and not enough time actually pitching on the mound.

Ever since the Dodgers acquired the tall, lanky and Southern California-raised right-hander, those two issues have plagued the $136.5-million acquisition in ways that have frustrated him, the team and its fan base.

Glasnow made 22 starts last year (a career-high in his injury-plagued career) before a nagging elbow problem ended his season early. This term, he managed only five starts before his shoulder started barking, landing him on the injured list for another extended stint.

Through it all, Glasnow has talked repeatedly about the need to be more “external” on the mound — focused more on execution and compete-level than the aches and pains in his body and imperfections in his delivery.

Yet, with each new setback, the veteran pitcher was left scrambling for answers, constantly tinkering with his mechanics and toiling with his mindset in hopes of striking an equilibrium between both.

That’s why, as Glasnow neared his latest return to action, he tried to simplify things. For real, this time.

No more worrying about spine angle and release point. No more mid-game thoughts about the many moving parts in his throwing sequence.

“I don’t even know,” he said when asked last week how he changed his mechanics during his most recent absence, the kind of physical ignorance that might actually be a good thing in the 31-year-old’s case.

“I’m just going out and being athletic and not trying to look at it. And if there’s something I need to fix, or something the coaches see, then I’ll worry about it. But I’m just going out … [and] getting in that rhythm. Getting back into a starting routine.”

Two starts in, that new routine looks promising.

After pitching five solid innings of one-run ball in Milwaukee last week, Glasnow started the second half of the season with another step forward Friday, spinning a six-inning, one-run gem in the Dodgers’ 2-0 loss to the Brewers at Dodger Stadium.

“I’ve been feeling good since rehab, making changes and stuff,” Glasnow said. “Feel solid right now. So gotta keep going.”

As the Dodgers (58-40) came out of the All-Star break, few players seemed as pivotal to their long-term success as Glasnow.

The club is counting on him and fellow nine-figure free-agent signee Blake Snell (who, like Glasnow, missed almost all of the first half with a shoulder injury but could be back in action by the end of the month) to bolster a rotation that has missed them dearly.

It is hopeful they can join Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and in some capacity Shohei Ohtani, at the forefront of a pitching staff seeking significant improvement as it tries to repeat as World Series champions.

Granted, the Dodgers — who would like to avoid adding a starting pitcher at the trade deadline, and might have a hard time finding an impact addition such as Jack Flaherty last summer even if they try — did have similar hopes for Glasnow last season.

Even when he first went down with his elbow injury in mid-August, the initial expectation was that he’d be back well in time for the playoff push.

Instead, Glasnow’s elbow never ceased to bother him. When he tried ramping up for a live batting practice session in mid-September, he effectively pulled the plug on his season when his arm still didn’t feel right.

Ever since, Glasnow has lived in a world of frustration, spending his winter trying to craft a healthier delivery only to run into more problems within the first month of this season.

“Certainly the talent is undeniable,” manager Dave Roberts said last week, ahead of Glasnow’s return. “But I think for me, for us, you want the dependability. That’s something that I’m looking for from Tyler from here on out. To know what you’re going to get when he takes that ball every fifth or sixth day.”

On Friday, Glasnow produced a template worth following in a four-hit, one-walk, six-strikeout showing.

Flashing increased fastball velocity for the second-straight outing — routinely hitting 98-99 mph on the gun — he filled up the strike zone early, going after hitters with his premium four-seamer and increasing reliance on a late-breaking sinker.

“It’s like the one pitch I can be late with, and it’s in the zone,” Glasnow said of his sinker, which he had thrown sparingly prior to getting hurt. “I don’t necessarily have to be perfectly timed up for it to have a lot of movement. I think if I’m late on it, it’s kind of my go-to.”

His big-bending curveball, meanwhile, proved to be a perfect complement, with Glasnow pulling the string for awkward swings and soft contact.

He retired the first five batters he faced, and didn’t let a ball out of the infield until Brice Turang’s two-out single in the third. He was late getting to the mound at the start of the fourth, resulting in an automatic ball to the leadoff batter, but remained unfazed, retiring the side in order.

Milwaukee’s Caleb Durbin hits a run-scoring double in front of Dodgers catcher Will Smith in the fifth inning Friday.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

Glasnow did wobble in the fifth against Milwaukee (57-40). Suddenly struggling to locate the ball, he walked leadoff hitter Isaac Collins on five pitches before giving up an RBI double to Caleb Durbin in a 2-and-0 count, when he left a sinker over the heart of the plate.

But then he settled down, escaped the inning without further damage, and worked around a high-hopping one-out single from Jackson Chourio in the sixth by striking out William Contreras and Christian Yelich.

“It’s not turn [my brain] off completely,” Glasnow said of his new, in-the-moment mentality. “But it’s not like, when I’m feeling bad, I resort more to, ‘How do we fix this?’ As opposed to like, ‘This is what I got today. Let’s just go get it.’ And I think a lot of that was due to the changes. I’m just in a better position right now to go out and be athletic.”

The outing marked Glasnow’s first time completing six innings since April 13 against the Chicago Cubs, and was his first such start yielding only one earned run since June of last year.

“He’s been able to stay in his rhythm, stay in his delivery, just be in compete mode,” Roberts said. “I think he’s in a really good spot. He’s healthy, feeling confident. And we’re better for it, for sure.”

Unfortunately for Glasnow, he was the second-best pitcher on the bump Friday. Opposite him, young Brewers right-hander Quinn Priester dominated the Dodgers over six scoreless innings, recording the second-most strikeouts of his career by fanning 10. Struggling veteran Kirby Yates didn’t help in relief of Glasnow, either, giving up a home run to Durbin in the seventh that sent the Dodgers to a disappointing defeat.

“They’re pitching us well,” Roberts said of the Brewers, who have won four straight games against the Dodgers over the last two weeks while giving up only four total runs. “We gave ourselves a chance, but we just couldn’t muster anything together tonight.”

Still, for a team with a comfortable division lead and the shortest World Series odds of any club in the majors, getting good starting pitching remains the most pressing big-picture concern for the Dodgers.

At the end of last year, and for much of the first half this season, Glasnow was unable to help. Now, he might finally be showing flashes he can.

“[I want to] just go out and be athletic,” Glasnow said last week. “Just go out and compete.”