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Monday's 18-inning Game 3 thriller between Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays did elicit a few complaints from World Series audiences.
East coasters were understandably distressed about staying up until nearly 3am to watch Freddie Freeman's walk-off cement the 6-5 victory for Los Angeles. Then there were Blue Jays fans, who are naturally disappointed to be trailing 2-1 in the best-of-seven series heading into Game 4 on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
But the biggest gripe about Monday's epic came from baseball fans who just want to see Shohei Ohtani hit.
'Blue jays intentionally walking Ohtani in the World Series is ruining baseball,' one angry Dodgers fan wrote on X, in a post echoed by countless others.
Ohtani, the two-way phenom who will start Game 4 on the mound, was walked five times on Monday, four of which were intentional free passes and three of those came without any runners on base.
And while that is the ultimate sign of respect for someone who had a three-home run game in the National League Championship Series, fans were nonetheless displeased to see the bat taken out of Ohtani's hands.
Ohtani, who will start Game 4 on the mound, was walked five times on Monday, four of which were intentional free passes and three of those came without any runners on base
'Game has started to get boring once they started walking Ohtani,' podcaster Jason McIntyre wrote on X.
'It's the World Series,' USC football reporter Ryan Dyrud wrote on X, 'we want to see the best.'
And it wasn't just Ohtani. Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts was also intentionally walked.
'The baseball gods will punish the toronto 'blue jays' for intentionally walking ohtani and betts,' one fan wrote on X, although it's not quite clear why they put the team name in quotes.
But as disappointed as some were to see Ohtani trotting down to first on four occasions, the truth is Toronto should have started the strategy earlier.
Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with a ground-rule double, and while he failed to score in that frame, he followed with a two-run home run in the third, an RBI-double in the fifth and a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh.
Even former Major League stars such as Ryan Howard, Kenny Lofton, Prince Fielder, Shane Victorino and Gary Sheffield were seen calling for the Blue Jays to walk Ohtani from a luxury suite they shared, as seen in an online clip from Fox's Ben Verlander.
Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani celebrates in the dugout after his solo home run in the seventh
Many fans reluctantly agreed.
'This is the correct baseball move... but from a fan perspective, this is THE WORST thing that can happen,' one person wrote on X.
And fans shouldn't expect anything different on Tuesday night. Asked if this will remain the Blue Jays' strategy with Ohtani going forward, Toronto manager John Schneider answered simply: 'Yeah.'
Ohtani's four intentional walks were the most any hitter received since Game 5 of the 2011 World Series, when Albert Pujols got five free passes for the St. Louis Cardinals.
The overall record for intentional walks in one game came in May of 1990, when the Cincinnati Reds gave Chicago Cubs slugger five free passes. The Reds would lose 2-1 in 16 innings, but went on to win the World Series that season.
