SAN DIEGO — Shohei Ohtani returned to his full two-way form for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, and the results were formidable.While pitching and hitting in the same game for the first time in four weeks, Ohtani homered on the first pitch of the night and then threw five innings of three-hit ball in Los Angeles’ 4-0 victory over the San Diego Padres.After launching his eighth homer of the season and then lowering his ERA to a minuscule 0.73, Ohtani took satisfaction in doing it all even on a night when he didn’t feel sharp on the mound.But in a series-clinching victory over the rival Padres, Ohtani still did enough in both areas to carry the back-to-back World Series champions yet again.Ohtani said through his interpreter that he had “a lot of uncertainty coming into this outing, because the feel wasn’t great. And so the results were good, but as you saw, the process wasn’t that great. … I have a pretty high standard in terms of performance, so it didn’t really match.”Two-way superstardom is a burden unique to Ohtani, and he hasn’t been shouldering it as effortlessly as usual this season. While his pitching numbers are stellar — his ERA is now the lowest in the majors among pitchers with at least 25 innings of work — he fell into a slump at the plate in April and struggled into May, with his power production particularly languishing.“Like we all know, he wants to win that Cy Young, and he wants to help us win games, and he wants to be a really productive offensive player,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “At this point in time, he’s doing all of the above.”While Ohtani has snapped out of his slump at the plate with 13 hits over the past seven games, he hadn’t produced offensively this season in games in which he was also pitching, so Roberts kept the bat out of …
