How Shohei Ohtani, without half his powers, rewrote MLB history again and went 50/50

When Shohei Ohtani's second major elbow reconstruction threatened to reveal the mortality of baseball's modern marvel, rendering the two-time MVP incapable of doing half of what has already made him one of sport's legendary characters, baseball's unicorn simply found another way to accomplish something no one had ever seen.

And he did it with one of the single greatest performances in MLB history. 

Less than a month after hitting a walk-off grand slam to become the fastest player ever to reach 40 homers and 40 stolen bases in a single season, Ohtani brought another flare for the dramatic Thursday afternoon to loanDepot park, the same place he pitched Team Japan to a World Baseball Classic title a year ago. 

He entered Thursday's series finale in Miami two homers and one stolen base short of MLB's first 50/50 season. He departed with 51 homers and 51 stolen bases after MLB's first six-hit, three-homer, two-steal game — an otherworldly performance that he said surprised even himself. 

"It's something I'm going to cherish for a very long time," Ohtani said afterward through translator Will Ireton. 

That will especially be the case considering what his individual performance meant in the bigger picture.

For the first time in his illustrious eight-year career, Ohtani will be playing postseason baseball. He made sure of that with his 6-for-6, franchise-record 10-RBI game in a 20-4 win over the Marlins that clinched a spot in the playoffs for the Dodgers and earned a curtain call on the road for Ohtani, who also set the single-season franchise record for home runs in the process of the festivities. 

In the clubhouse afterward, the Dodgers toasted to their 12th straight postseason appearance and the new superstar whose career