Stage may be different, but Ohtani, Judge continue to wow

We got plenty of drama over the past two days of the World Baseball Classic -- and so much more than Team USA had bargained for, right? -- that didn’t involve Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, the two headliners of the whole thing.

We had Team USA surviving tiebreakers it never should have needed when Italy put it on Mexico on Wednesday night, then put it out. So USA was into the knockout round and Mexico wasn’t. Italy, in that way, had not only seen Aaron Nola pitch the way he had and seen Vinny Pasquantino hit all those home runs, but it had essentially been the team that got a huge save for Team USA.

This all means that Judge plays on, the same way Ohtani does, and that is as great for baseball in March as it is all summer long and into the fall. Judge and Ohtani are not the only stars of the WBC, of course, we sure have seen that so far all over the world. But they remain the game’s biggest and most theatrical stars, looking as big as ever, making you watch even when one of them strikes out in a big moment -- the way Judge did in the ninth inning against Italy on Tuesday, in what nearly became a devastating loss for his team. There remains a magic to them that reminds you of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson back in the day, even when they’re not on the same field together and are literally on other sides of the world.

So this is another moment to take a step back and fully appreciate what the two of them are doing in their primes: There is the two-way brilliance of Ohtani, nothing comparable happening in baseball since Babe Ruth was with the Red Sox and before he got to the Yankees and turned the home run into something both dramatic and historic and made him seem bigger than life. And there is the quite Ruthian home run brilliance of Judge with the Yankees, even hitting 62 homers one time, two more than Ruth ever hit.

Judge has now hit 50 or more home runs four times, same as Ruth did. He has won three MVP Awards, and Ohtani has done him one better on his way to winning two World Series with the Dodgers. Last October, Ohtani also provided the greatest single game in postseason history -- and maybe all of baseball history -- pitching six shutout innings against the Brewers and striking out 10 on a night when he also hit three home runs.

Again: This is all happening in real time. Our time. There is a Bird-Magic quality about it because of their contrasts, and because Ohtani can pitch as well as hit a baseball out of sight. They have come to this moment from different countries, and now play on different coasts in this one. But at a time when there is so much talent in baseball, on display as much as ever in the WBC -- pitching and hitting all over the field -- it is Judge and Ohtani who still appear to be bigger than life.

Ohtani began his WBC by hitting a grand slam in his first game against Chinese Taipei team, second time up, and nearly having completed a cycle by his third time up. Then he hit another one against South Korea. Judge has two WBC homers himself. And sometimes when he just hits a single, he makes it memorable. He did that against Great Britain, a ball that came off his bat at 109.5 mph and put a hole in the left-field scoreboard at Daikin Park.

That one reminded you of the home run against the Blue Jays in the playoffs last October, one that helped save the Yankees at the time, a shot off the top of the left-field foul pole that was like something out of “The Natural,” even though it only won the Yankees one more night of the season.

Pasquantino absolutely had himself a night in Houston, making us all hang in there on a blowout game on the chance that he might hit four home runs until being walked his last time up. We didn’t want to miss his last at-bat. But every at-bat feels that way with Judge and Ohtani.

There have been other glamour combinations across baseball history, even with two players on the same team the way Ruth and Lou Gehrig were. We once had Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle playing at the same time in New York. And there was the time, and what a time it was, when we had Ted Williams in Boston and Joe DiMaggio in New York. Right now in baseball, and for as long as it lasts, we have that kind of magic with Judge and Ohtani.

Their teams are no lock to end up fighting for the title of this World Baseball Classic, the way Team USA and Samurai Japan did in the last one -- the one that ended with Ohtani striking out Mike Trout. We have seen too much from the other teams in this WBC to even think about betting that way. It would still be something to see if they both do make it. The way the two of them are something to see, even in the spring.