LOS ANGELES -- It's easy to take Shohei Ohtani for granted. By now, we've settled into the rote comfort: He is the best player on the planet, and that's that. Ohtani's baseline is everyone else's peak. He is judged against himself and himself only.

And it's human nature that when we watch something often enough -- even something as mind-bending as a player who's a full-time starting pitcher and full-time hitter and among the very best at both -- it starts to register as normal.

Which is his performance on Friday -- the unleashing of the full extent of Ohtani's magic-- was the sort of necessary reminder that one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now, doing unfathomable things, redefining the game in real time. And that ev

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