TORONTO — Stand down, Dodger fans. No reason for fear. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is here.
Whatever pearl-clutching resulted from Friday night’s 11-4 pasting by the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 1 of the 2025 World Series was short-lived. Yamamoto was able to do in Saturday night’s series-evening 5-1 Dodgers victory what Blake Snell couldn’t the night before.
Did someone say complete games are passé? Not in this case. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts might be inclined to pull other starters at the 100-pitch mark, but for the second straight start he left Yamamoto alone, and the right-hander from Bizen, Okayama Prefecture, delivered again with a 105-pitch complete game in the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory that might have served as a response to the reputation of the Blue Jays as a team that gets the bat on the ball consistently.
Or it was a response to that Game 1 drubbing. Or maybe just a stubborn resolve that if something bad was to happen, it wouldn’t be on his watch.
“Needless to say, today’s game, we had to win,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter, Yoshihiro Sonoda. “So that’s just how I treated this game.”
That’s not as easy as he made it sound.
“Outstanding, uber competitive, special,” Roberts said. “Yeah, he was just locked in tonight. It was one of those things he said before the series, losing is not an option, and he had that look tonight.
“… You know, he’s pitched in huge ball games in Japan. He’s pitched in the WBC. Players that have the weight of a country on their shoulders, that’s pressure. So I just feel that part of his DNA is to just perform at a high level in big spots and control his heartbeat and just continue to make pitches.
“I mean, he could have went another 30, 40 pitches tonight.”
Wouldn’t that have been a shock to all of those critics who regularly accuse Roberts of being too quick with the hook.
Yamamoto fanned eight with a game-high 17 swings and misses, allowed four hits and retired the last 20 hitters he faced in becoming the first to pitch a complete game in the World Series in 10 years, or since the Kansas City Royals’ Johnny Cueto in 2015. And he’s the first pitcher with multiple complete games in a postseason since the San Francisco Giants’ Madison Bumgarner went the distance in a Wild Card game and Game 5 of the World Series in 2014.
Similar to Snell on Friday night, Yamamoto had a high pitch count at the start, 33 in the first two innings. Unlike Snell, who continued to struggle before coming out in the sixth, Yamamoto got better – much better – as the evening wore on.
The first inning should have been a tipoff. George Springer led off the game with a double and Nathan Lukes singled him to third, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the hottest hitter in the Toronto lineup, lurking.
Yamamoto struck him out on a curveball after four straight splitters, only Guerrero’s fourth strikeout of the postseason. Yamamoto then got Alejandro Kirk on a liner to first baseman Freddie Freeman and struck out Daulton Varsho.
“That was probably our best chance … after that, it was kind of few and far between,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “… I think he made it hard for us to make him work. He was in the zone, (splitter) was in and out of the zone. It was a really good performance by him.”
This was similar to Yamamoto’s start in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series in Milwaukee. The previous night, Snell had pitched a gem but was removed after eight innings and 103 pitches, and it took two relievers to nail down the 2-1 victory that launched a four-game sweep. Yamamoto took the mound for Game 2 and polished off the Brewers in 111 pitches, striking out seven, not allowing a hit after the fourth and retiring the last 14 men he faced.
He almost makes it impossible to take him out. Roki Sasaki started throwing in the bullpen as the ninth inning began Saturday night, just in case, but there was no need. After having struck out the side in the eighth on 14 pitches, Yamamoto needed only 12“more to wrap it up in the ninth.
So can we argue that Yamamoto might be – no, is – this staff’s actual ace? Can we stipulate that the 12-year, $325 million contract with which the Dodgers landed him before last season is actually a bargain, regardless of the noise made by those who subscribe to the “buying championships” narrative?
In the regular season, Yamamoto was 12-8 with a 2.48 ERA, second to Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes in the National League and fourth best in baseball behind Skenes, Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Houston’s Hunter Brown. He did so while making a staff-high 30 starts, posting regularly and with consistency while Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Sasaki, all projected starters, missed time recovering from injuries.
In only four of his 30 starts did he allow more than three earned runs. He had 18 quality starts (six innings or more, three runs or less), and this should be a tipoff as to his postseason readiness: In his last seven regular-season starts he had a 1.53 ERA and completed less than six innings only once. (That stretch came after he gave up six runs in 4⅔ innings against the Angels on Aug. 11, so maybe he had something to prove.)
In this postseason, he is now 3-1 with a 1.56 ERA in four starts, with 26 strikeouts in 29⅔ innings. He was unintimidated by the loud and raucous crowd in Rogers Centre, a trait that will come in handy if he is needed to pitch a Game 6 back here next Friday.
And don’t look now, but in Saturday night’s interview session it was suggested to Roberts that, given the pitching legacy of this organization, maybe some comparisons would be in order. One questioner, name-dropping Orel Hershiser and Sandy Koufax, wondered if these two games were evidence that Yoshinobu is indeed a throwback to those years when men were men and only slackers didn’t finish what they started.
“You look at Yamamoto, it’s kind of the throwback in the sense of, when he starts a game, he expects to finish it,” Roberts said. “And he’ll go as long as I let him. But that’s his intent.”
The Hershiser reference is particularly relevant. He was the last Dodgers pitcher to complete a World Series start, doing so twice against the Oakland A’s – including the Game 5 clincher – in that magical October of 1988. That marked three complete game victories in a row, counting his Game 7 NLCS victory over the Mets.
Yamamoto might indeed get that shot to duplicate Hershiser in Game 6 – if the series goes that far.
jalexander@scng.com