MILWAUKEE — He did not scream. He did not pump a fist. He showed hardly any of the emotions the moment seemed to call for, accomplishing something no major league pitcher had achieved in almost a decade.
Instead, after completing MLB’s first postseason complete game since 2017, and the first by a Dodgers pitcher since 2004, Yoshinobu Yamamoto simply walked around the mound, casually removed his glove, and didn’t break into a smile until he looked back at the center-field scoreboard.
“Wow,” he finally mouthed to himself, as the realization of his nine-inning, three-hit, one-run gem finally started to set in.
The reaction came after his old-school, matter-of-fact performance lifted the Dodgers to a 5-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.
“I was able to pitch until the end,” Yamamoto said in Japanese afterward. “So I really felt a sense of accomplishment.”
This was a night almost no one saw coming. And not just because Yamamoto failed to complete even one inning in his last trip to American Family Field against the Brewers during the regular season.
In an era of strictly controlled pitch counts and a steadfast reliance on relievers come October, Yamamoto turned back the clock on a night reminiscent of a bygone generation.
He dominated the Brewers with ruthlessness and efficiency. He controlled the game with a steady rhythm and confident demeanor. He gave up a home run on his first pitch, a fastball that Jackson Chourio launched to right field, then barely looked stressed for the 110 throws that followed.
He struck out seven batters. He walked only one. And he left manager Dave Roberts with an easy ninth-inning decision, going back to the mound to finish what he started.
“He’s got true confidence from me that [even the] third time through, at pitch 90, he feels that he’s the best option,” Roberts said. “For me, that just gives me that confidence. … The way he was throwing, I felt really good about him starting the ninth.”
Yamamoto’s outing wasn’t quite like what Blake Snell did in Game 1 of this series, when the team’s other co-ace dazzled with virtually unhittable stuff in a scoreless eight-inning, one-hit, 10-strikeout gem — a start in which he probably could have also gone the distance, had Roberts not turned to his shaky bullpen in the ninth.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during Game 2 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Rather, Yamamoto collected outs much in a more industrious manner — giving the Brewers plenty to hit, with the confidence they wouldn’t punish him.
“From the start, I felt they were being very aggressive,” Yamamoto said. “And I threw pitches that took advantage of that.”
Early on, it did take time for the 27-year-old right-hander to find his footing. After Chourio’s homer, he had to work around baserunners in each of the next four innings.
But eventually, Yamamoto dialed in his trademark splitter, found a groove while sharing pitch-calling duties with catcher Will Smith, and finished the night by retiring the final 14 batters.
He made it all seem so easy and simple, the way modern postseason pitching is no longer supposed to be.
“What he did tonight,” Smith said, “that was just domination.”
So much so, Kiké Hernández joked he got “bored” playing left field.
It had been eight years to the day since Justin Verlander tossed the majors’ last complete game in the playoffs. Not since José Lima’s shutout in the 2004 NL Division Series had a Dodgers starter accomplished the feat.
Of the 23 postseason complete games in the club’s Los Angeles history, Yamamoto’s three hits given up were tied for the fewest. His four baserunners allowed were fewer than Sandy Koufax or Orel Hershiser or Fernando Valenzuela had ever yielded in such an outing.
“Good pitching beats good hitting any day of the week,” said future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, who has never thrown a complete game in the playoffs. “And you’re seeing that right now.”
It helped that the Dodgers had plenty of good hitting themselves, staking Yamamoto to a lead by the time he returned to work in the second.
Teoscar Hernández hits a solo home run for the Dodgers in the second inning against the Brewers on Tuesday in Game 2 of the NLCS.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
After Chourio’s home run, Teoscar Hernández tied the score with a solo home run in the second inning. Andy Pages added a two-out RBI double three batters later, putting Brewers ace Freddy Peralta in a hole he wouldn’t dig out of.
Peralta’s final pitch led to another run in the sixth, with Max Muncy taking him deep with what was his 14th career postseason homer, setting a franchise high.
In the seventh and eighth, the Dodgers added on again, including an RBI single from Shohei Ohtani that snapped his one-for-23 drought since the start of the NLDS.
“Right now, our entire team is playing the best baseball we’ve played all year,” Roberts said. “We’re peaking at the right time.”
Still, all the Dodgers really needed on Tuesday was the brilliance they got from Yamamoto.
After working around an error from Muncy in the second, then third- and fourth-inning singles before a walk in the fifth, the pitcher was in total control by the night’s end.
From the fifth inning on, the Brewers only hit two balls out of the infield as Yamamoto mixed curveballs, cutters and sinkers to go along with his late-biting splitter and high-riding fastball. The Brewers’ plan was to be aggressive, but all it did was allow Yamamoto — who never threw 20 pitches in a single inning, and needed just 46 total for the final four — to stay on the mound.
“Sometimes,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said, “great pitching brings out the worst in you.”
“Just super efficient tonight,” Smith added. “That was really special.”
Highlights from the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Brewers in Game 2 of the NLCS.
The outcome has the Dodgers in total command of this series, leading 2-0 and having hardly even exposed their bullpen.
Tyler Glasnow is set to start Game 3 at Dodger Stadium on Thursday. Ohtani will follow him in Game 4. Even if things go sideways, Snell and Yamamoto will be back on deck for the two games after that.
Technically, this remains a battle for a pennant. But really, it has become a showcase for a Dodgers rotation that has a 1.54 ERA in the playoffs — and the first complete game in recent postseason memory.
“All of them are throwing the ball amazing, but we kind of knew that,” Kershaw said, describing this starting staff as the best he’s ever seen in his 18 years with the Dodgers. “Snell did it, and you can’t pitch much better than that. And then what Yama did today was amazing.”