TORONTO — It had been 24 years since a starter put together consecutive complete games this time of year, a stretch that encompassed a seismic shift in the industry’s handling of pitchers. One-hundred pitches have since become a red flag, and bullpens have increasingly taken on more importance, never more so than in October. That Yoshinobu Yamamoto did it now — against another road crowd ready to erupt, while facing another lineup adept at making contact, at the tail end of his second major league season — became a source of wonder among his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates.
“Amazing,” shortstop Mookie Betts said after watching Yamamoto propel his team to a 5-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night, giving the Dodgers a split at Rogers Centre. “I’ve been playing a long time, but I haven’t ever seen anything like this.”
Yamamoto twirled nine innings of one-run ball in front of a sold-out crowd and against a devastating Blue Jays offense — 11 days after doing the same at the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. This time, Yamamoto allowed just four hits, walked none, struck out eight and retired each of the last 20 batters he faced, becoming the first pitcher since Curt Schilling in 2001 to throw back-to-back complete games in the postseason. The last time a pitcher retired the final 20 batters in the playoffs, Don Larsen was authoring a perfect game in the 1956 World Series.
“That was special,” said Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who hit what ended up being the game-winning home run in the seventh inning, breaking Kevin Gausman’s string of 17 consecutive batters retired.
“That’s what we needed. We needed a great start out of somebody, and he gave it to us.”
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman marveled at how unlikely an outing like this seemed early on, with Yamamoto requiring 23 pitches to escape the first inning and sitting at 46 pitches by the end of the third. For a while, it seemed as if a repeat of Game 1 — when the Blue Jays taxed Blake Snell, forced Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to dip into his bullpen early and erupted for a nine-run sixth inning — was inevitable. Then Yamamoto adjusted. He required just 59 pitches over his last six innings, during which he displayed the full capabilities of his expansive repertoire.
“It’s four or five pitches, and it feels like he could hit a flea with it,” Freeman said. “He can throw it wherever he wants. Sets up hitters. Understands hitters’ swings. He’s just incredible.”
Two offseasons ago, the Dodgers beat out a plethora of suitors, including the Blue Jays, to land Yamamoto with the largest contract ever awarded to a starting pitcher. The returns were not immediate. Yamamoto missed three months with a shoulder injury in 2024 and got beat up by the San Diego Padres in the Dodgers’ playoff opener later that season.
That start symbolized a turning point.
Yamamoto served as an anchor to a debilitated rotation the rest of those playoffs then arrived at spring training with noticeably more confidence and put together a Cy Young-caliber regular season, going 12-8 with a 2.49 ERA in 30 starts. On a staff once again wrought by injury, Yamamoto was a constant. And as the season prolonged, his best emerged. Yamamoto allowed just two earned runs in 27 innings in September and followed by allowing two unearned runs in 6⅔ innings in the wild-card round. He stumbled slightly against the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS, but he has since put together back-to-back masterful outings, the last of which the Dodgers desperately needed.
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“He said before the Series, ‘Losing is not an option,'” Roberts recalled. “And he had that look tonight.”
The Blue Jays put the game’s first two batters on then Yamamoto retired their Nos. 3, 4 and 5 hitters in order. The second inning began with Freeman dropping a pop fly, but Yamamoto worked around that too. The bottom of the third started with Yamamoto plunking George Springer in the left wrist with a 96 mph fastball. Two batters later, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a long single. But the Blue Jays scored only once, on a sacrifice fly from Alejandro Kirk, the first in a string of 20 consecutive outs by the Dodgers’ Japanese right-hander.
Yamamoto began his outing by going heavy with his splitter, throwing 21 of them in the first three innings. He then expanded, keeping the Blue Jays’ hitters off-balance with his curveball, cutter and four-seam fastball. Freeman tried to think along with him as the game progressed and was often wrong. At one point, Yamamoto unleashed back-to-back sliders.
“What?” Freeman recalled thinking to himself. “He’s got that thing too?”
Eleven weeks ago, on Aug. 11, the Los Angeles Angels ambushed Yamamoto, scoring six runs before the end of the fifth inning. He had become too predictable, Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. It reminded Yamamoto of the importance of continually mixing up his sequencing, a methodology that has carried him through these playoffs.
“The process of him reading and reacting each inning, trying to get an idea of what they’re trying to do, and then just trying to pivot and counter with his stuff and his arsenal — he’s in a very good spot right now,” Prior said. “He feels very good with everything that he’s doing.”
Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes believed it was the cutter that served as Yamamoto’s best pitch Saturday.
Asked for his opinion, Guerrero offered a fitting response.
“All of them,” he said in Spanish. “All of his pitches are good. I can’t tell you which one is better.”
The Dodgers are in the midst of what might be the most successful run in their prolonged history, while three wins away from a third championship in six years and in the midst of their 13th consecutive playoff run. And yet the list of those who have done what Yamamoto just pulled off — register back-to-back postseason complete games while allowing no more than a run in each of them — harkens to another era.
It’s Sherry Smith in 1920, Sandy Koufax in 1965 and Orel Hershiser in 1988.
Now, it’s Yamamoto in 2025.
“To be honest, I’m not sure about the history,” he said through an interpreter. “But I’m very happy about what I did today.”
