Turang's Game 1 HR not just clutch, it was the type of blast only Ohtani hits

Brice Turang has quietly blossomed into one of the game’s most valuable all-around players on a team that had the most wins in MLB during the regular season. His tying home run in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was just the latest example, helping the Brewers take an early lead over the Dodgers in the battle for the NL pennant.

Trailing 1-0 in the fourth inning and squaring off against two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, who looked to be cruising to that point, Turang meeting that moment was plenty impressive on its own. But the way Turang did it was the cherry on top.

As pointed out by Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports, only four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani -- sitting in the visitors’ dugout Sunday night -- had hit a homer just like Turang’s in 2026.

Turang worked ahead of Skubal 2-0 before taking his shot at a 95.5 mph sinker on the inner portion of the plate. He worked his hands inside and rerouted the pitch to left-center field, a 384-foot shot that left the bat at 102.5 mph.

An opposite-field home run, on an inner-third fastball, in a left-on-left matchup. There’s nothing easy about getting the barrel to that pitch. As such, it was just the fourth time it happened across MLB in 2026, regular season or postseason.

Ohtani was responsible for each of the other three.

We’re used to seeing the 6-foot-4 Ohtani -- a superstar with top-end swing speed, exit velocities and home run distances -- pull off incredible feats of physical strength. While Turang often hits the ball hard, with a 71st-percentile average exit velocity (90.3 mph), he’s listed four inches and 20 pounds smaller than Ohtani, and his average swing speed is 4.6 mph slower than Ohtani’s.

Such a home run happened just three times in 2025. Two came at the hitter-friendly home parks of the Rockies and Athletics, and the other came off the bat of Statcast monster James Wood.

Suffice to say, Turang is keeping some rare company with the monumental swing he took Sunday night. It also came during a year in which he struggled against left-handed pitching in the regular season, slashing just .216/.307/.313 with only three home runs. But none of that matters anymore in October.

And Turang put in extra work to make this happen. After going 2-for-16 against the Padres in the NL Division Series, he stayed at the park late on Friday to get extra swings in with Brewers hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach.

“Kind of grew up hitting all the time for late hours of the night,” Turang said. “So sometimes it brings me back to being a kid a little bit and enjoying just going in there and hitting in the cage.”

Clearly, it worked.