Souhan: Sho-Time indeed. Shohei Ohtani’s performance was distinctively incredible.

Before Shohei Ohtani, baseball history offered one example of a premier slugger who was also a premier pitcher and excelled at both disciplines in the postseason.

His name was Babe Ruth.

Ruth, though, never hit a home run in a postseason game in which he pitched.

The Babe was the most transformational player in baseball history. He took a game that revolved around bunting and slapping singles and imbued it with the majesty of power.

Ruth was a standout pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and the most dominant slugger in baseball history for the New York Yankees.

Ruth, though, never did what Ohtani did in the National League Championship Series and never had to compete against players of color or deal with a succession of hard-throwing relievers.

In Game 4 of the NLCS on Friday night, Ohtani pitched six scoreless innings, struck out 10, hit three home runs and drew a walk. Ohtani came as close as anyone ever has to producing the ideal baseball performance.

Ohtani’s achievement is so remarkable that it’s difficult to find apt comparisons.

Imagine Patrick Mahomes throwing three touchdown passes and also intercepting three passes. That could never happen.

Imagine a goalie, in the Stanley Cup playoffs, earning a shutout — and scoring three goals. That could never happen.

Ruth is the one player in baseball history who conceivably could have matched Ohtani’s Game 4 performance, but he never did.

This year, in the NFL, Jacksonville rookie Travis Hunter has played on offense and defense. And in doing so, he has realized how difficult it is to be a competent player on both sides of the ball in one game. On Sunday, the Jaguars used him mainly on offense.

The one sport in which athletes can display Ohtani-like versatility and dominance is basketball. But basketball is engineered so the best athletes can take the most shots, grab the most rebounds, block the most shots and compile the most assists.

In baseball, you can’t run a play for your best player. Ohtani had to face a championship-caliber lineup and had to hit the pitches available to him in his at-bats.

A pitcher is the most important player on a baseball diamond. Ohtani allowed the fewest possible runs while pitching.

The home run is the ultimate offensive achievement in baseball. Ohtani hit home runs in each of his official at-bats.

Sports fandom tends to overreact to this kind of greatness. Those who gush are accused of being prisoners of the moment.

If a baseball player had done something similar between 1920 and 1980, before football became the United States’ dominant sport, there would have been many books written about him, as well as epic poems.

Instead, Ohtani made history on a Friday night of a packed sports weekend in a game that doesn’t even try to compete with the NFL anymore. Which is a shame.

Given the global nature of modern baseball and the uniqueness of his feat, Ohtani, who is Japanese, should be considered the world’s premier athlete.

Because baseball has become a regional sport in America, and because Ohtani uses an interpreter to conduct interviews with English-speaking journalists, he isn’t as central to American sporting culture as he should be.

Maybe he shouldn’t do as many national commercials as Peyton Manning, but he should be more in demand than Cooper and Arch.