Lowering his head, Yamamoto said to Osamu Yada, “Thank you for everything this year.”
Yamamoto figured his season was over. He’d thrown 96 pitches over six innings, and he half-joked in the postgame news conference that he wanted to cheer on his team rather than pitch again the next day. Manager Dave Roberts had the same thought, saying Yamamoto would be the only pitcher unavailable in Game 7.
The trainer had other ideas.
“Let’s see if you can throw in the bullpen tomorrow,” Yada said.
By just being in the bullpen, Yada said, Yamamoto could provide the Dodgers a psychological edge over the Toronto Blue Jays.
“That’s how I got tricked,” Yamamoto said in Japanese with a laugh.
Yada’s guiding hand transformed Yamamoto into a legend on Saturday night.
When he forced Alejando Kirk to ground into a game-ending double play, Yamamoto removed his cap and raised his arms toward the heavens. Catcher Will Smith rushed the mound and picked him up from the waist.
“I felt a joy I never felt before,” Yamamoto said.
Dodgers catcher Will Smith picks up Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto after the final out of a 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Yamamoto pitched a complete game in Game 2. He pitched six more in Game 6. His contributions in Game 7 increased his series total to 17 ⅔ innings, over which he allowed only two runs.
The throwback performance earned him the series’ most valuable player award, as well as universal admiration.
“I really think he’s the No. 1 pitcher in the world,” Shohei Ohtani said in Japanese. “Everyone on the team thinks that, too.”
“I mean, he pitched last night, started,” Freeman said. “He threw the most innings out of our pitchers tonight.”
Freeman pointed out that in addition to pitching in three games, Yamamoto also warmed up to pitch in a fourth. Two days after his complete game in Game 2, he prepared in the bullpen to pitch a potential 19th inning in Game 3. The Dodgers won that game in the 18th inning.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Freeman said.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Yamamoto’s Game 7 performance, “For him to have the same stuff that he had the night before is really the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever seen on a major league baseball field.”
Did Friedman think any other pitcher could have done what Yamamoto did in this series?
“No, I don’t,” Friedman said. “In fact, yesterday morning I didn’t necessarily think Yama could either.”
Friedman said he didn’t think much of it when he was notified after Game 6 that Yamamoto was receiving treatment from Yada at the team hotel with the intention of perhaps pitching in Game 7. Friedman was told the next morning that Yamamoto received another round of treatment.
The possibility of Yamamoto pitching in Game 7 became real to Friedman after he performed his trademark javelin-throwing routine and played catch at Rogers Centre. Yamamoto still wasn’t convinced.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, left, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani and teammates after a 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series at Rogers Centre on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“I didn’t think I would pitch,” Yamamoto said. “But I felt good when I practiced, and the next thing I knew, I was on the mound (in the game).”
The superstitious Sonoda wears the same pair of lucky underwear on days Yamamoto pitches. He wore the rabbit-themed boxers for Game 6. Sensing Yamamoto might pitch again, Sonoda wore the same boxers for Game 7.
“Just in case,” Sonoda admitted, “I didn’t wash them.”
Yamamoto had never pitched on consecutive days as a professional, in either the United States or Japan. When was called on to relieve Blake Snell in the ninth inning, he was uncertain of how he would perform.
Inheriting two baserunners from Snell with one out, Yamamoto loaded the bases by plunking Kirk. He forced Dalton Varsho to ground into a force out at home, only to throw a curveball to Ernie Clement that was driven to the wall in left field. Defensive replacement Andy Pages crashed into Kiké Hernández on the warning track but held on to the ball, preventing the Blue Jays from scoring the walk-off run.
Yamamoto pitched a 1-2-3 10th inning and went into the bottom of the 11th with a 5-4 lead, courtesy of a homer by Smith in the top of the inning.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started the inning by pulling a 96.9-mph fastball for a double and advanced to third base on a sacrifice bunt by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Yamamoto walked Addison Barger to place runners on the corners, setting up the game-ending double play by Kirk.
“I really couldn’t believe it,” Yamamoto said. “I was so excited I couldn’t even recall what kind of pitch I threw at the end. When my teammates ran to me, I felt the greatest joy I’ve felt up to this point.”
Clayton Kershaw, whom Yamamoto wanted to send into retirement with another championship, embraced him harder than he’d ever embraced him. Roberts swallowed him an embrace.
Yamamoto was moved to tears.
Overwhelmed by the moment, Yamamoto didn’t sound as if he grasped the magnitude of what he’d just done. In time, he will.
On the night the Dodgers solidified their dynasty, Yamamoto made this World Series his.
If you’re not on social media, good for you. If you are, you know that any good start by Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is immediately followed by a flood of venom aimed at former major league outfielder Josh Reddick.
No sooner had Yamamoto thrown his World Series complete game last week than Reddick got 3 million views for one of his tweets from two years ago.
Many of those viewers were happy to tell him he was a moron.
In 2023, the Dodgers signed Yamamoto, the winner of Japan’s version of the Cy Young award for three years running, for $325 million.
Reddick’s tweet: “How do you give a guy $325 million without ever throwing a pitch in MLB”
How do you give a guy $325 million without ever throwing a pitch in MLB
On Friday, the Dodgers will turn to Yamamoto to keep their season alive and force a Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays. He could — and this sounds insane in modern baseball — throw his third consecutive complete game.
“If Paul Skenes did not exist, Yoshinobu Yamamoto would be winning the Cy Young, going away,” podcast host Chandler Rome said.
Then Rome asked Reddick to answer for his tweet.
“I don’t think I would say I regret it,” Reddick said. “I’d probably say that tomorrow if they gave it [that money] to somebody else. That’s just my opinion, and I’m allowed to have it because it’s social media …
“That was my opinion, and obviously it was wrong. This guy has been phenomenal, and very, very, very, very, very, very good to come over here and do what he’s done. I’ll admit I was wrong on that one.”
Reddick said he regularly hears about it from Dodgers fans.
“They enjoy it,” he said. “I just love how much I live in Dodgers fans’ heads every day, and how they just look forward to making it feel like they’re upsetting me by sending these tweets and just completely ruining my day.
“If you’re a Dodger fan: It doesn’t bother me. So you do you for your two seconds of fame, and go back to work.”
At the time of the podcast, Reddick’s tweet had 9 million views. Now it has 12 million.
“It’s like wrestling, man,” he said. “You’ve got to be the good guy or the bad guy. As long as you’re a guy who’s getting noticed, you’re doing something right.
“I’m just playing the heel for the Dodgers for the rest of my life.”
Who would have guessed that in a starting rotation of giants and alphas, the most important pitcher would be the diminutive 27 year old with the mischievous smile who plays the role of everyone’s little brother?
From a distance, Yoshinobu Yamamoto doesn’t look like someone who figures to contend in the coming years to be the best pitcher in the world.
He stands only 5-foot-10. He’s not mean in the way frontline starters sometimes are. He’s extremely considerate of others, even people who offer minimal, if any, transactional value — or more precisely, his focus and confidence in his work don’t blind him to their sensitivities.
Beneath the mask of normality, however, there is something in Yamamoto capable of fueling the kind of complete-game performance he delivered in the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the World Series.
Yamamoto wants to be great. Or perhaps he has to be.
Look, and you will see it. Listen, and you will hear it.
Yamamoto has often shared his admiration of Clayton Kershaw, but it’s clear he doesn’t see him as just a mentor. He sees him as a benchmark by which should measure himself.
When Kershaw announced his retirement last month, Yamamoto spoke of how grateful he was to play alongside him for two years. He talked about how much he learned from him. What was particularly interesting was what he said after.
“I think from my heart that I want to be an ace pitcher like Kershaw,” Yamamoto said in Japanese, “and I want to do my best to one day surpass my great senior.”
Kershaw has 223 career victories. He won a most valuable player award. He won three Cy Young Awards.
Not only does Yamamoto want to be better than Kershaw, he’s bold enough to state that ambition publicly.
Yamamoto did something Kershaw never did against the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series by pitching a complete game in the postseason.
Eleven days later, he did it again, this time against the Blue Jays in the World Series.
The last pitcher to throw a complete game in a World Series was Johnny Cueto, and he did it 10 years ago. The last pitcher to throw consecutive complete games in the postseason was Curt Schilling, and he did it 24 years ago.
Yamamoto was the Dodgers’ most dependable starter in the regular season. As a second-year major leaguer, he made a team-high 30 starts, posting a 12-8 record with a 2.49 earned-run average.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto reacts to recording a strikeout to close out the first inning of Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
His game has reached another level in the postseason, and in doing so, he might have saved the Dodgers, who were in trouble after Blake Snell’s implosion resulted in a loss in the opening game of this World Series
“I felt we had to win today no matter what,” Yamamoto said.
With his 105-pitch masterpiece, Yamamoto spared manager Dave Roberts the unpleasant duty of opening the gates to hell — pardon me, the bullpen — and tied the series at one game apiece. The next three games will be played at Dodger Stadium.
The historic performance by Yamamoto had an ominous start, as George Springer led off in the first inning with a double and advanced to third base on a single by Nathan Lukes.
Yamamoto escaped the jam by retiring Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho in order, but his pitch count was already at 23.
“I didn’t think I could get to the end,” Yamamoto said.
The ever-optimistic Roberts was hopeful Yamamoto could complete six innings, which would task the bullpen with covering the last three. Roberts never had to prepare the smoke and mirrors required to navigate the final third of the game. Yamamoto gave up a run in the third inning but retired the last 20 batters he faced.
How he pitched reflected the reality of the Dodgers’ bullpen situation — essentially, that converted starter Roki Sasaki was the only reliever who could be trusted. Midway through the game, Yamamoto started throwing cutters, which induced contact and limited his pitch count.
“Fundamentally, my pitching style is to throw as much as I can in the strike zone,” Yamamoto said. “It’s a style in which I aim in the strike zone and throw with as much effort as I can.”
Before this postseason, the last time Yamamoto pitched a complete game was in 2023, for the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese league.
So when Yamamoto recorded the final out of his start against the Brewers, he forgot his custom of embracing the catcher.
“It had been so long, I didn’t know where to go,” he said.
On Saturday, he knew, walking toward home plate and clasping hands with Will Smith. The guess here is that he won’t forget again. If he doesn’t pitch another complete game in these playoffs, he figures to pitch a few of them over the next handful of seasons.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a rare four-hitter to get the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers back in the World Series.
Published On 26 Oct 202526 Oct 2025
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Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto flipped the World Series script in favour of the reigning champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are headed home for three games and flying high after a 5-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 on Saturday.
Yamamoto was spectacular while pitching a complete game, striking out eight batters and walking none, while Will Smith drove in three runs, including a solo home run in the seventh inning that put the Dodgers ahead for good.
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“Yeah, he was just locked in tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Yamamoto. “It was one of those things he said before the series: losing is not an option, and he had that look tonight.”
The win leve;led the best-of-seven series at 1-1 and put the star-studded Dodgers back on track in their bid to become Major League Baseball’s (MLB) first repeat champions in 25 years.
Baffled hitters
A day after a humbling 11-4 defeat that exposed the thinness of the Dodgers’ bullpen, and may have allowed some doubt to creep into their clubhouse, the team turned the ball over to their ace in the hopes he could right the ship.
Making his first start since pitching a complete-game gem in the National League Championship Series, Yamamoto again went the distance, and left Blue Jays hitters baffled one day after they were seemingly hitting pitches at will.
“Going into the game, the pregame bullpen, I was feeling really good with the splitter,” Yamamoto said about his signature pitch.
“I’m very happy and proud of the fact that I was able to bring a big contribution and give a chance for the team to win.”
Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches during Game 2 against the Toronto Blue Jays [Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images via AFP]
Fast Start
The Dodgers made a fast start as Freddie Freeman hit a two-out double in the first inning before Smith singled to put the visitors ahead 1-0.
Toronto threatened in the bottom half of the inning, getting runners on first and third with no outs, but Yamamoto retired the next three batters to get out of the jam and never looked back.
Yamamoto was so dominant that he retired the final 20 batters he faced on the night, a remarkable run that started when he got Alejandro Kirk out on a sacrifice fly that scored George Springer in the third.
“He made it hard for us to make him work,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said of Yamamoto’s performance. “He was in the zone, split was in and out of the zone. It was a really good performance by him.”
‘Pitchers duel’
The Dodgers, who also had their hands full with Toronto starter Kevin Gausman, broke through in the seventh when Smith homered into the second deck in left field before Max Muncy’s solo shot two batters later.
Los Angeles added two more runs in the eighth on a wild pitch before Smith grounded into a fielder’s choice that scored Shohei Ohtani.
Gausman, who prior to Smith’s homer had retired 17 Dodgers batters in a row, took the loss after allowing three runs and striking out six batters in 6-2/3 innings.
“I thought Kev matched [Yamamoto] pitch for pitch, really,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “They both had low pitch counts. It was kind of a classic pitchers’ duel, and they made a couple more swings.”
Game 3 is on Monday.
Yamamoto, left, celebrates the Game 2 victory with Los Angeles Dodgers teammate Will Smith [Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images via AFP]
From the hot tub in the Dodger Stadium clubhouse, Yoshinobu Yamamoto saw his interpreter on his way to take a shower.
Yamamoto called out to him.
“What are those colors?” Yamamoto asked him.
Yoshihiro Sonoda, 48, wore only a pair of boxers that depicted a rabbit with rainbow-colored lasers shooting out of its eyes.
Sonoda explained bashfully, “These are my shobu pantsu.”
For more than a year, Sonoda had worn shobu pantsu — or game underwear — for each one of Yamamoto’s starts.
Sonoda chuckled as he recalled the incident. Several weeks have passed since then, and the superstitious interpreter still wears his lucky boxers on days Yamamoto pitches.
When Yamamoto takes the mound for the Dodgers against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday in Game 2 of the World Series, beneath Sonoda’s team-issued sweatpants will be the rabbit and rainbow-colored lasers.
The kid is a little different.
Sonoda recalled thinking that last year on the first day of spring training. On a grass field near the players’ parking lot, he watched Yamamoto throw javelins as part of his workout routine.
When the Japanese right-hander was finished, Sonoda started collecting the projectiles.
Yamamoto stopped him.
“Please, you’re my interpreter,” he said. “You’re not my servant.”
Yamamoto picked up his javelins and carried them back to the clubhouse.
In the months that followed, Sonoda noticed how Yamamoto treated others. He wasn’t kind only to other players. He was also conscientious of the organization’s rank-and-file employees.
“He pretends he’s not watching, but he’s watching,” Sonoda said. “He seems like he’s not listening, but he’s listening.”
Every day the Dodgers are on the road, Yamamoto has Starbucks coffee delivered to the team hotel. He always orders something for Sonoda.
“I think Yamamoto is quite the gentleman, quite the high character,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He treats everyone from Hiro to myself to all the support staff with the highest of respect.”
Two days into the job as Yamamoto’s interpreter, Sonoda wanted to resign.
A former collegiate judo standout in Japan, Sonoda spent the previous two decades working in the entertainment industry as a lighting engineer, his credits including “Men in Black,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Succession” and “Nurse Jackie.”
He had no previous experience as an interpreter and was by no means a baseball expert. He was apart from his wife, who remained in her native Texas.
“I don’t want to quit, but I can’t do this,” Sonoda told traveling secretary Scott Akasaki.
Akasaki, who was once an interpreter for Hideo Nomo, asked Sonoda to reconsider.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, left, speaks to reporters with his interpreter, Yoshihiro Sonoda, in a press conference before Game 1 of the 2024 NLDS against the San Diego Padres.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
“You can learn about baseball if you study it,” Sonoda recalled being told by Akasaki. “But Yoshinobu chose you for a reason, and that’s something no other person has.”
Sonoda never shared his insecurities with Yamamoto, instead throwing himself head first into his work. He was taught how to interpret ball-tracking data by assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness and performance science manager Tyler Duncan. He consulted with veteran interpreters, including Shingo Horie of the San Diego Padres and Hiro Fujiwara of the New York Mets.
Last year at World Series media day, Yamamoto was asked about Sonoda.
“We were both rookies this year,” Yamamoto said. “Sonoda-san especially, he came from a different industry and I would think he endured a lot of hardship. But he didn’t let on about that being the case.”
Standing by Yamamoto’s side, Sonoda fought back tears.
Sonoda has a small notebook in which he tracks every pitch thrown by Yamamoto. In a night game in Baltimore last month, Sonoda took notes as usual, jotting down pitches types and their locations.
Yamamoto carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning.
When there were two outs, Sonoda had Shohei Ohtani on one side of him and trainer Yosuke Nakajima on the other.
Sonoda stopped taking notes.
“I thought I should prepare to celebrate,” he said.
Jackson Holliday homered, and the no-hitter was gone.
Sonoda blamed himself.
“If only I had taken notes on that at-bat …” he said.
Sonoda was a significantly better interpreter this season than he was last season. On his commutes to Dodger Stadium, he listens to audio of Horie interpreting for Yu Darvish or Fujiwara for Kodai Senga.
Yamamoto noticed.
“His efforts in the shadows have been to where I can feel them,” Yamamoto said. “He’s a very pure and straightforward person. I think he’s really wonderful.”
Last year, Sonoda received a set of national-park-themed underwear from his wife, who knew of his affinity for the outdoors. The Yellowstone Park pair featured a roaring bear, which reminded Sonoda of Yamamoto screaming on the mound. Sonoda started wearing the boxers on days Yamamoto pitched, switching to a different pair for the next start if he lost or didn’t pitch well.
A new season called for a new set of underwear, but a stretch of inadequate run support prompted Sonoda to unretire a pair he wore on the Dodgers’ World Series run last year, the ones with the rainbow-emitting rabbit.
“I’m very superstitious,” Sonoda said.
Sonoda is also grateful.
“I think there are 14 or 15 Japanese interpreters in the majors leagues,” he said. “I feel like I’m the most blessed.”
Blessed because Akasaki talked him out of resigning. Blessed because of the baseball education he received from McGuiness and Duncan. Blessed because he has mentors such as Horie and Fujiwara. And above all, blessed because he was paired with a player whom he considers as good a person as he is a pitcher, the kind of high-character individual for whom he would wear radiant underwear in the off chance it could improve his fortune.
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.”
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.”
From Jack Harris: 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.
Thursday: at Dodgers, 3 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max, AM 570, KTMZ 1220, ESPN radio
Friday: at Dodgers, 5:30 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max, AM 570, KTMZ 1220, ESPN radio
*-Saturday: at Dodgers, 5 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max, AM 570, KTMZ 1220, ESPN radio
*-Monday: at Milwaukee, 2 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max, AM 570, KTMZ 1220, ESPN radio
*-Tuesday, Oct. 21: at Milwaukee, 5 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max, AM 570, KTMZ 1220, ESPN radio
ALCS Seattle vs. Toronto Seattle 3, at Toronto 1 (box score) Seattle 10, at Toronto 3 (box score) Wednesday at Seattle, 5 p.m., FS1 Thursday at Seattle, 5:30 p.m., FS1 *-Friday at Seattle, 3 p.m., FS1 *-Sunday at Toronto, 5 p.m., FS1 *-Monday at Toronto, 5 p.m., Fox/FS1
*-if necessary
From Ryan Kartje: His top two running backs had just been carted up the Coliseum tunnel, a nightmare scenario for a team that finally found its groove on the ground, when coach Lincoln Riley was asked at halftime how USC would move forward without the bulk of its backfield. He grinned.
“I might have to carry the ball some,” Riley quipped during NBC’s broadcast.
USC managed to make it through a win over Michigan without much in the way of reinforcements at running back. But with its backfield depth decimated — and the toughest stretch of the Trojans schedule ahead — Riley and his staff will have to figure out how proceed starting Saturday at Notre Dame.
USC will be without leading rusher Waymond Jordan for at least a month after he injured his ankle during the second quarter Saturday. Jordan, who’s currently third in the Big Ten in rushing, underwent surgery on Monday and is expected to miss four to six weeks.
From Kevin Baxter: Christina Unkel was 10 when she became a certified soccer referee. And in all that time, she said she can remember just one instance in which she changed a call after being confronted by a group of angry players.
She was 14, working a youth game in Southwest Florida, when she awarded a throw-in. As the team which lost possession protested vehemently, an opposing player stepped into the scrum and sheepishly confessed to touching the ball last.
“I’m like, ‘OK, well thanks for admitting that. I guess we’ll throw it the other way, right?’” said Unkel who, as an attorney in addition to being an official, knows the value of a confession.
Without that admission, she said, the protesting team’s pleas would have necessarily fallen on deaf ears.
Referees know they don’t always get ‘em right, but imagine the chaos if they left every call up for debate. Yet that hasn’t stopped every soccer player who’s ever laced up a pair of cleats from arguing calls.
Soccer is the only major U.S. team sport in which that’s allowed.
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: He whipped passes through a sea of outstretched arms. He lobbed up a sky-high alley-oop. He canned a step-back three.
Luka Doncic is so back.
The star guard had 25 points, seven rebounds and four assists in his preseason debut Tuesday, but the Lakers crumbled in the second half of a 113-104 loss to the Phoenix Suns at Mortgage Matchup Center.
Fresh off a quarterfinal finish in EuroBasket, where he led the tournament in scoring for Slovenia, Doncic wowed his teammates by zipping passes through microscopic lanes and chucking up one-legged three-pointers. After Doncic missed a free throw, he saved the rebound blindly over his head and the possession ended in a three-pointer from Nick Smith Jr.
For much of this week, the baseball stadium will serve as the Rams’ home away from home as they prepare for Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in London.
This is not the first time that the Rams have played an away game and then remained in the city before traveling abroad.
In 2017, coach Sean McVay’s first season, the Rams defeated the Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., and then stayed in town before traveling to defeat the Arizona Cardinals at Twickenham Stadium in London.
Several players said they would rely on the Rams’ training staff to help them modify weekly routines that include massage, acupuncture and other bodywork sessions with California providers outside of the organization.
Chris Kreider scored his second power-play goal in his home debut with 1:27 to play, and the Ducks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 on Tuesday night for its 10th consecutive victory in home openers.
Cutter Gauthier and Drew Helleson also scored and Lukas Dostal made 23 saves for the Ducks, who matched Boston and Toronto for the NHL’s longest active victory streak in home openers.
Kreider, who also had an assist, is off to an outstanding start with four goals in three games for the Ducks after the Rangers traded their longtime left winger last June to create cap space.
1933 — The Philadelphia Eagles play their first NFL game and suffers a 56-0 loss to the New York Giants.
1961 — Mickey Wright wins her third LPGA Championship with a rout, nine strokes ahead of Louise Suggs. Wright shoots a 3-over, 287 at the Stardust Country Club in Las Vegas for her third major title of the year and her tenth tour victory of the season.
1972 — Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks becomes the sixth NHL player with 1,000 career points. Mikita assists on Cliff Koroll’s goal in a 3-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues at Chicago Stadium.
1983 — The Chicago Blackhawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs score five goals in 1 minute, 24 seconds to set an NHL record for the fastest five goals by two teams. The Maple Leafs win, 10-8.
1988 — Oklahoma rushes for an NCAA-record 768 yards, including 123 by quarterback Charles Thompson. Thompson scores three touchdowns and passes for one in the first period of a 70-24 rout of Kansas State.
1988 — Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins scores eight points — two goals and six assists — in a 9-2 win over the St. Louis Blues at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
1989 — Wayne Gretzky of the Kings passes Gordie Howe as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer in a during a 5-4 overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers. Gretzky flips a backhand shot past Oilers goaltender Bill Ranford with 53 seconds remaining to tie the score and pass Howe with 1,851st point. Gretzky wins the game in overtime.
1995 — The Carolina Panthers beat the New York Jets 26-15 for their first NFL victory.
2005 — Michigan gives up a touchdown to Penn State with 53 seconds left, then marches down the field to score on a TD pass from Chad Henne to Mario Manningham with no time remaining for a 27-25 win over the eighth-ranked Nittany Lions.
2005 — USC’s Matt Leinart pushes and spins his way into the end zone with 3 seconds left to cap a chaotic finish to the top-ranked Trojans’ 28th straight victory, a back-and-forth 34-31 win over No. 9 Notre Dame.
2008 — Fabian Brunnstrom scores three goals in his NHL debut to match the league record in Dallas’ 6-4 victory over Nashville.
2009 — Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom becomes the first European defenseman and eighth overall to reach 1,000 points, assisting on two goals in the Red Wings 5-2 win over the Kings.
2012 — The Nets bring pro sports back to Brooklyn with a preseason victory, beating the Washington Wizards 98-88 in the first basketball game at the Barclays Center.
2015 — Carey Price makes 25 saves and the Montreal Canadiens make team history by starting a season with a five straight wins, the latest a 3-0 victory over the New York Rangers.
2017 — New England quarterback Tom Brady passes for 257 yards with two touchdowns in the Patriots’ 24-17 win at the New York Jets. Brady, who has 187 regular-season victories, surpasses Hall of Famer Brett Favre (186) and Peyton Manning (186) for the most regular-season victories by a starting quarterback in NFL history.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
On the first day of spring training, at a Camelback Ranch facility adorned with ever-present reminders of the team’s 2024 World Series title, a Dodgers staff member took in the scene, then chuckled while reflecting on the club’s trek to a championship.
“Last year was not a fun year,” the staff member said. “At least, not until the end.”
Indeed, in the afterglow of the franchise’s first full-season title in more than three decades, the turbulent path getting there became easy to forget.
Last season’s Dodgers dealt with a wave of injuries to the pitching staff, inconsistencies in the lineup, and the club’s lowest full regular-season win total (98) in six years.
Fast-forward six months, and this year’s Dodgers find themselves in a similar place.
They are again navigating absences on the mound and in the bullpen over the last several weeks. Their offense has gone from leading the majors in scoring over the first half of the season, to suddenly sputtering over the last month and a half.
And after a 7-4 loss to the Angels on Monday, in the opener of a three-game Freeway Series at Angel Stadium, they are on pace for only 92 victories with a 68-51 record, clinging to what has dwindled to just a one-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres.
Little fun. Lots of frustration.
Monday’s game was a lost cause from the start.
Despite getting an extra day of rest this week, after flipping places in the rotation with Tyler Glasnow for Sunday’s loss against the Toronto Blue Jays, Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned in one of his worst starts in the majors.
He gave up a home run to Zach Neto on his first pitch of the night, and another run later in the first inning after two walks (one of them on a missed third strike call from home plate umpire Dan Iassogna) and a Yoán Moncada single.
Then, in the fifth, his outing completely fell apart. Five of the first seven batters of the inning reached base (four singles and a hit by pitch). Four runs crossed the plate (including two on a Mike Trout single). And after Yamamoto walked his fifth batter with two outs, manager Dave Roberts was forced into an early hook, removing Yamamoto after 4⅔ innings and six runs (the most Yamamoto has yielded in his 41-game MLB career).
The Dodgers’ lineup didn’t do much better.
Over the first six innings, they failed to figure out Angels right-hander José Soriano and his upper-90s mph sinker, managing just two hits while striking out six times.
By the time they finally put a runner in scoring position in the seventh, the deficit had grown to 7-0 on Neto’s second home run of the night (this time off Alexis Diaz). And even then, they came up empty, with Alex Freeland grounding into an inning-ending double-play against former Dodgers reliever Luis García with the bases loaded.
Angels shortstop Zach Neto runs the bases after hitting a home run in the first inning Monday night.
(Jessie Alcheh / Associated Press)
Eighth-inning home runs from Shohei Ohtani (his 42nd of the season, and the 100th of his career at his old home stadium in Anaheim) and Max Muncy (a three-run drive inside the right-field foul pole) put the Dodgers on the board at long last.
But it was far too little, much too late — allowing the Angels (57-62) to improve to 4-0 against the Dodgers this season after sweeping a series at Chavez Ravine back in May.
When coupled with Sunday’s maddening loss to Toronto (a defeat that left Roberts outwardly perturbed in his postgame news conference), the last 48 hours have represented another backward step in a Dodgers’ campaign that is quickly growing full of them.
It has zapped whatever momentum was building after the team’s two series-opening victories against the AL East-leading Blue Jays last weekend. It has dropped the club to 12-19 since the Fourth of July, the fifth-worst record in the majors over that span. And, most consequentially, it has opened the door for the Padres (who have won three in a row and five out of six) to potentially take the division lead ahead of their visit to Dodger Stadium on Friday.
The only silver lining: The Dodgers overcame similar struggles last year, doing just enough down the stretch to win the division and march all the way to an unlikely championship.
But they were hoping to avoid such headaches this season, and mount a more enjoyable defense of their title.
With less than two months remaining in the season, that dream has come and gone.
The Dodgers can still win another World Series. But the road to this point has been anything but fun.
SAN FRANCISCO — They’ve underperformed relative to preseason expectations, but worked around serious roster limitations.
They’ve wowed with an undefeated 8-0 start, a star-studded offense that tops the majors in scoring, and a comfortable division lead in a competitive National League West. And yet, they’ve left so much to still be desired, both on the mound from their injury-plagued pitching staff and at the plate amid uncharacteristic slumps from several veteran stars.
No, the Dodgers have not played like “The Greatest Team Ever” in the first half of the season. Their record-setting $400-million payroll is not bidding for any all-time wins mark.
But, after grinding out a 5-2 extra-innings win over the San Francisco Giants on Sunday to enter the All-Star break with a key divisional series victory, their first half has been a quiet success nonetheless, concluding with the Dodgers (58-39) holding a 5 ½-game lead in the NL West, the top record in the NL and still the best odds of being baseball’s first repeat champion in a quarter-century.
“I think the win-loss, the standings are great,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think there’s just a lot of improvement that we need to do, we need to be better at.”
Indeed, Sunday epitomized the duality of the Dodgers’ first 97 games.
Their starting pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, completed his stellar start to the season with a seven-inning gem, keeping the Giants (52-45) off the scoreboard while giving up three hits, two walks and striking out seven batters.
If the Dodgers were to pick a first-half MVP, perhaps only Shohei Ohtani would outpace Yamamoto, who enters the break as a first-time All-Star thanks to his 9-7 record, 2.59 earned-run average and six separate outings of six or more scoreless innings (tied for second-most such starts in the majors this year, behind only Tarik Skubal).
“He’s been really good,” Roberts said before the game, wholly convinced the 26-year-old Japanese right-hander would bounce back from his ugly five-run first inning in Milwaukee last week. “He’s just to the point where he knows he’s a really good pitcher, he’s an All-Star and he has high expectations for himself. He’s just been very valuable.”
However, the back end of the bullpen remained a problem, with closer Tanner Scott blowing a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth by giving up a two-run home run to pinch-hitter Luis Matos on a hanging slider at the knees.
Scott, a $72-million signing this offseason, has converted only 19 of his 26 save opportunities this year. He has a 4.09 ERA and eight home runs given up. And his struggles have made the bullpen a prime area of need for the Dodgers entering the trade deadline.
“[He’s] just in-zone too much,” Roberts said, “and getting beat by [the slider] or getting beat by the fastball in similar locations.”
The Dodgers’ offense has been equally quixotic.
Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman both hit the midway point mired in extended slumps — though Freeman made a couple key contributions Sunday, lining an RBI double in the fourth inning before putting the Dodgers back in front in the 11th with a bloop single that dropped in center.
“It’s just good to actually hit a couple balls,” Freeman deadpanned postgame. “That’s been the hardest thing the last couple months.”
Freddie Freeman hits a run-scoring single in the 11th inning Sunday against the Giants.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
Meanwhile, Ohtani has pitched superbly in his limited action on the mound, but his offense has declined since resuming a two-way role. When he singled in the fifth inning Sunday, it marked his first hit this year to come on the day immediately following one of his pitching starts.
“When you’re starting to try to break it down, I think you can cut it any way you want,” Roberts said when asked about Ohtani’s increasingly noticeable dip in production. “But when he’s in the lineup, he makes the lineup better.”
And though catcher Will Smith has a healthy lead for the NL batting title, earning his third-straight All-Star nod with a .323 mark, others toward the bottom of the lineup have been cold, from Teoscar Hernández (who is hitting barely .200 since returning from an adductor injury in May; though he added an infield single in Sunday’s 11th inning rally) to Andy Pages (whose All-Star candidacy fizzled with a .220 average in his last 16 games, despite also chipping in with an RBI single in the 11th) to Tommy Edman (whose defensive versatility has been valuable, but finished the first half in an 0-for-23 slump).
“I always expect more from our guys,” Roberts said, sounding less than satisfied with the state of his club at the midseason marker. “And they expect the same thing.”
Such struggles, after all, are reminders of how the Dodgers remain fallible in their pursuit of another World Series.
Their banged-up pitching staff remains another wild card in their pressure-packed title defense (though Tyler Glasnow has already returned, Blake Snell and Blake Treinen should be back shortly after the All-Star break, and Roki Sasaki is on track for a late August return after throwing a long-awaited bullpen session this week).
And for large swaths of the first half of the season, it all made the Dodgers look exceedingly mortal; none more so than during the seven-game losing streak that preceded their back-to-back wins against the Giants to close out this weekend’s series.
“I mean, obviously, we didn’t want to lose nine in a row going into the break,” Freeman said. “So getting a couple of wins and ending it on a good note after a really good first half that we played, that was big today.”
However, their issues have still done little to no damage to the team’s long-term chances, with a frustrating but fruitful opening act to this campaign leaving the Dodgers right where they want to be — even if, as Sunday epitomized, they haven’t gotten there the way they would have hoped.
“First place is first place,” Freeman said. “I think we’re OK with where we’re at.”
Clayton Kershaw was named to his 11th All-Star Game on Sunday by Commissioner Rob Manfred, who used his “Legend Pick” to select the Dodgers’ left-hander. Kershaw (4-0) is one of just 20 pitchers in baseball history to strike out 3,000 batters.
He’ll be joined on the N.L. team by right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who leads the Dodgers in wins (8), strikeouts (109), innings (96 2/3) and ERA (2.51). First baseman Freddie Freeman, catcher Will Smith and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani were chosen as NL starters last week. The All-Star Game will be played July 15 in Atlanta.
Injury update
The Dodgers’ injury-battered pitching staff could soon be getting healthier. Right-hander Tyler Glasnow threw a bullpen Sunday in preparation for what Roberts will be a return to the rotation during the Dodgers’ six-game roadtrip. Glasnow has been out sine April 28 with shoulder discomfort. He had a 4.50 ERA in five starts before going on the IL.
Left-hander Blake Snell and reliever Blake Treinen are both scheduled to make minor-league rehab assignments this week in advance for their return to the roster. Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, as been sidelined since April 2 with a shoulder injury, is expected to pitch for Class A Rancho Cucamonga. Treinen, who last pitched in mid-April, is expected to make a one-inning outing with Triple A Oklahoma City. He is recovering from a right forearm strain.
From Benjamin Royer: For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.
Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.
Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.
“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”
“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”
The Angels (42-42) reached .500 for the ninth time this season, while the Braves (38-46) have lost five of six.
Adell’s double down the left-field line off Dylan Lee (1-3) drove in Mike Trout, who doubled. Jorge Soler, who came off the injured list after missing 11 games with lower back inflammation, added a two-run double off Enyel De Los Santos in the four-run inning.
From Anthony De Leon: It has been more than a year since Cameron Brink suited up for the Sparks, and excitement is building around the return of one of the team’s biggest stars.
Sidelined by a torn ACL and meniscus, Brink has steadily progressed through drills and contact work since training camp.
Head coach Lynne Roberts, who spoke with her last week, said Brink is making significant progress and is champing at the bit to get back on the court.
There’s no set timeline, as the team remains cautious about pushing her too hard during recovery. At this point, her return depends on when team doctors and Brink agree she’s ready.
The Kings lost a strong piece of their lineup shortly after the NHL’s free agency period began Tuesday.
The New York Rangers signed Vladislav Gavrikov — considered the top defensive free agent available after three seasons with the Kings — to a seven-year contract worth $49 million, according to a person familiar with the agreement.
The Vegas Golden Knights proved the big winners Tuesday, acquiring star forward Mitch Marner in a sign-and-trade deal agreed to with Toronto to land free agency’s most prized player. And the two-time defending champion Florida Panthers took Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand off the board by re-signing each to a lengthy contract.
From Kevin Baxter: Christian Pulisic was supposed to be in St. Louis on Tuesday, preparing to play in the national soccer team’s Gold Cup semifinal with Guatemala. Instead he was standing under a freeway overpass in Culver City playing with a bunch of kids.
“This is kind of what I was, you know, born to do,” the former and perhaps future captain of the national team said. “Having this platform and being here to inspire, hopefully, the next generation and do this for kids, it’s special.”
Pulisic, 26, isn’t far removed from being a kid himself, one who grew up learning the game on mini fields not too different from the one he was opening Tuesday. But for Pulisic soccer is no longer a child’s game, it’s a business. And that has taken a lot of fun out of it.
So when Pulisic, the national team’s active leader in both appearances (78) and goals (35), decided to pass up this summer’s Gold Cup, the last major competition before next year’s World Cup, he was widely pilloried as selfish and egotistical by former national team players including Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Landon Donovan.
1921 — The Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier heavyweight match at Rickard’s Orchard in Jersey City, N.J., becomes the first million-dollar gate in boxing history. The receipts total $1,789,238 with $50 ringside seats. In front of 80,183, Dempsey knocks out Carpentier at 1:16 of the fourth round.
1927 — Helen Wills becomes the first American to win at Wimbledon since May Sutton in 1907, beating Lili de Alvar 6-2, 6-4 for the title.
1937 — Don Budge beats Gottfried von Cramm, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon. Budge sweeps the championships winning the singles, the men’s doubles title with Gene Mako and the mixed doubles crown with Alice Marble.
1938 — Helen Wills Moody wins her eighth and final singles title at Wimbledon, defeating Helen Jacobs 6-4, 6-0.
1966 — Billie Jean King wins the first of her six singles titles at Wimbledon, beating Maria Bueno of Brazil 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
1967 — Catherine Lacoste of France becomes the first foreigner and first amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship. At age 22, she is also the youngest champion.
1976 — Chris Evert beats Evonne Goolagong, 6-3, 4-6, 8-6, to win the women’s singles title at Wimbledon.
1988 — Steffi Graf ends Martina Navratilova’s six-year reign as Wimbledon champion with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 victory. It is the first time in nine finals that Navratilova loses a Wimbledon singles match.
1989 — Jockey Steve Cauthen becomes the first rider in history to sweep the world’s four major derbies after winning the Irish Derby with Old Vic. He had previously won the Kentucky Derby with Affirmed (1978), the Epsom Derby with Slip Anchor (1985) and Reference Point (1987) and the French Derby with Old Vic (1989).
1994 — Colombian defender Andres Escobar, 27, is killed outside a bar in Colombia in retaliation for deflecting a ball into his own goal in a 2-1 loss to the United States in the World Cup.
1995 — Tom Weiskopf withstands a charge by Jack Nicklaus to win the U.S. Senior Open by four strokes.
1999 — Alexandra Stevenson becomes first qualifier in Wimbledon history to reach the women’s semis. She beats another qualifier, 16-year-old Jelena Dokic, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.
2000 — UEFA European Championship Final, Feijenoord Stadion, Rotterdam, Netherlands: David Trezeguet scores in extra time to give France a 2-1 win over Italy.
2005 — Venus Williams overcomes an early deficit and a championship point to beat top-ranked Lindsay Davenport 4-6, 7-6 (4), 9-7 for her fifth major title and her first in nearly four years.
2010 — The United States beats Japan 7-2 to win its seventh consecutive world softball championship.
2010 — FIFA World Cup: Ghana, only African team remaining in last 8, are beaten 4-2 on penalties by Uruguay; Netherlands upset Brazil 2-1.
2011 — Wladimir Klitschko wins a lopsided unanimous decision over David Haye, adding the WBA title to his heavyweight haul. Klitschko and his older brother, Vitali, hold all three major heavyweight titles. Wladimir already had the IBF title (and minor WBO, IBO belts), while Vitali is the WBC champion.
2016 — Sam Querrey ends Novak Djokovic’s quest for a true Grand Slam in the third round at Wimbledon. In a match interrupted by three rain delays after being suspended in progress because of showers a night earlier, Querrey ousts Djokovic 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (5) at the All England Club.
2017 — Hometown underdog Jeff Horn upsets Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines on points in a highly controversial WBO welterweight title fight in Brisbane, Australia.
2018 — A wild brawl breaks out between Australia and the Philippines during the Basketball World Cup qualifying game in Manila. Thirteen players, including four Australians, are ejected for their part in the brawl. The game is won 79-48 by Australia.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1903 — Washington outfielder Ed Delahanty went over a railroad bridge at Niagara Falls and drowned. The exact circumstances of his death never were determined.
1909 — The Chicago White Sox stole 12 bases, including home plate three times, in a 15-3 rout of the St. Louis Browns.
1930 — Chicago outfielder Carl Reynolds homered in the first, second and third innings, leading the White Sox to a 15-4 win over the New York Yankees. Reynolds, the second player in history to hit home runs in three consecutive innings, had two inside-the-park homers.
1933 — Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals 1-0 in an 18-inning game. He allowed six hits and no walks. In the second game of the doubleheader, the Cardinals were blanked 1-0, with Roy Parmelee outdueling Dizzy Dean.
1933 — Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics set and American League record with 21 total bases in a doubleheader. Foxx hit two solo homers in the opener, a 6-5 win over the St. Louis Browns. In the nightcap, an 11-6 loss, Foxx had two homers, a double and a triple.
1941 — Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit a home run to extend his consecutive game hitting streak to 45 games, surpassing Willie Keeler’s record of 44 straight games for the Orioles in 1897.
1963 — Juan Marichal of San Francisco beat Warren Spahn and the Milwaukee Braves 1-0 in 16 innings on Willie Mays’ homer.
1986 — Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox fell short of a record-tying 15th consecutive winning decision when the Toronto Blue Jays scored three runs in the eighth inning for a 4-2 victory.
1995 — Hideo Nomo of the Dodgers became the first Japanese player picked for baseball’s All-Star game. Nomo was the NL’s leader in strikeouts and second in ERA.
2007 — Roger Clemens reached a rare milestone, pitching eight innings of two-hit ball to earn his 350th career win and lead the New York Yankees past Minnesota 5-1. Clemens became the first major leaguer to win 350 games since Hall of Famer Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves accomplished the feat in 1963.
2009 — Houston Astros beat the Padres 7-2, but only after waiting out a 52-minute delay in the top of the ninth inning caused when a swarm of bees took over part of left field at San Diego’s Petco Park.
2013 — Homer Bailey pitched his second no-hitter in 10 months and the first in the majors this season, pitching the Cincinnati Reds to a 3-0 victory over the slumping San Francisco Giants. Bailey beat the Pirates 1-0 in Pittsburgh last Sept. 28.
2014 — Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz became the 36th player in major league history to collect 1,000 extra-base hits with a ground-rule double during a 16-9 lost to the Chicago Cubs.
2016 — Cleveland’s franchise-record 14-game winning streak was snapped by a 9-6 loss to Toronto, with the Blue Jays scoring three runs in the eighth to overcome a cycle by Rajai Davis.
2016 — C.J. Cron went 6 for 6 with two homers and five RBIs, Carlos Perez had five hits and drove in six and the Angels ended a four-game losing streak with 21-2 rout of the Boston Red Sox.
2019 — The New York Yankees record streak of consecutive games with at least one home run comes to an end at 31.
2022 — The Cardinals become the first team to hit four consecutive homers in the 1st inning when Nolan Arenado, Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez and Dylan Carlson all go deep against Kyle Gibson of the Phillies. Gibson retires the first two batters before giving up a single to Paul Goldschmidt, followed by the homer barrage. Lars Nootbaar then hits a ball that is caught at the warning track to end the inning. It is the 11th time time this has been done in any inning, but the Cards need another homer by Arenado, this one in the 9th, to end up as 7-6 winners.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.
Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.
Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.
“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”
“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”
Whereas Smith was chased from the game in the fifth inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was excellent again. A week after being pulled after five innings in Denver — because of a lengthy rain delay — Roberts called on the sure-to-be All-Star to pitch with an extended leash.
Yamamoto gave up one run, a two-out RBI double to Lenyn Sosa in the fourth inning, but twirled his way through an otherwise overmatched White Sox lineup, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The right-hander tossed seven innings, gave up one run and three hits, while striking out eight, walking one and bringing his earned-run average down to 2.51.
“Any given night, a big league team can get you,” Roberts said, “and I was just happy that he was still aggressive and using the split, putting hitters away, but he’s doing what he needs to do.”
Across his last 12 innings, Yamamoto has given up just four hits.
Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting his 30th homer of the season.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“I think I’m pitching with really good form,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter after the game. “I think it’s becoming very clear what I have to do.”
White Sox first baseman Miguel Vargas — the former Dodgers top prospect who the franchise parted ways with at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman — represented the heart of the Chicago lineup, batting cleanup with his .229 batting average and 10 home runs entering the game.
Vargas, who failed to bring the power in an 0-for-4 effort, received a 2024 World Series ring from Roberts and general manager Brandon Gomes during pregame batting practice. Yamamoto set him down his first three times at the plate Tuesday.
“Yoshinobu did spectacular work today,” Shohei Ohtani told NHK, a Japanese television station, after the game.
Of more promising White Sox prospects, rookie Chase Meidroth faced a potential NL Cy Young award candidate. In the third inning, Yamamoto struck out Meidroth with a three-pitch combo: 95-mph fastball on the edge of the strike zone, a 92-mph cutter on the outside corner and a splitter down and in, forcing a swing more than a foot above where the pitch landed.
Andy Pages struck two run-scoring hits — a double and a single — en route to a two-for-four day at the plate. The 24-year-old Cuban slugger sits in sixth in the most recent NL All-Star outfielder voting, and ended Tuesday with a .294 batting average and 57 RBIs, the latter statistic being the best on the Dodgers.
“He’s earned it,” Michael Conforto, who struck the two-RBI single that capped off the four-run first, said of Pages’ All-Star candidacy. “What you may or may not see is just how hard he works… really just doesn’t seem to take days off.”
Ohtani, who was not a part of the Dodgers’ hit parade that led to their first five runs across three innings, joined the run-scoring effort in the fourth with a no-doubt solo home run — 408 feet and 116.3 mph, halfway up the right-field pavilion — off of Smith, his 30th this season. As fireworks unexpectedly shot up from the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the ninth inning — it was a reminder that Wednesday could bring fireworks on the field as Clayton Kershaw takes the mound three strikeouts away from being the 20th MLB player to reach the 3,000-strikeout milestone.
Etc.
Kopech returned to the 15-day injured list — of which he recently returned from on June 7 — with right-knee inflammation. He said before Tuesday’s game that he wasn’t sure what caused the injury, and would characterize the ailment as discomfort rather than pain.
Roberts said there isn’t a timeline for Kopech’s return, but said it was a short-term issue. The 29-year-old, who received a cortisone shot in his knee, had yet to give up a run in eight scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.
In pitchers on their way back from injuries, Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) will throw his third rehabilitation with triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday. The expectation is that Glasnow will pitch five innings/75 pitches, Roberts said.
The Dodgers manager added that Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and Blake Treinen (right forearm sprain) will throw to live hitters Wednesday, the next step in their recovery progression.
“Hopefully we’re starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Roberts said.
Next Ohtani start
Ohtani will next start on the mound Saturday against the Houston Astros — a 4:05 p.m. start — and southpaw Justin Wrobleski will again piggyback off the two-way star’s opening effort.
The billing couldn’t have been bigger. Dodgers vs. Giants. Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Logan Webb. One of the game’s oldest rivalries, pitting what were supposed to be two of the game’s top pitchers.
On Friday night at Dodger Stadium, however, only one right-handed ace showed up.
In the first meeting of the season between the Dodgers and Giants, Webb did his thing, giving up just two runs on two hits over seven spectacular innings.
Opposite him, Yamamoto was no match, floundering in a five-run, 4 ⅔-inning start that sent the Dodgers to a 6-2 defeat — leaving the teams tied atop the National League West with identical 41-29 records at the 70-game mark.
The evening was a study in pitching excellence (or, in Yamamoto’s case, a lack thereof); serving as a reminder that, for as good as Yamamoto has become in his second major league season, there are tiers to his talent he has still yet to reach.
Where Webb got soft contact and quick outs, needing just 98 pitches to complete his seventh seven-inning outing of the season, Yamamoto labored through hitters’ counts and long at-bats, issuing a career-high five walks while finding the strike zone on just 56 of his 102 pitches.
Where Webb limited traffic and escaped rare damage, giving up just two hits while walking only three batters, Yamamoto toiled through self-inflicted trouble; none worse than when he walked the bases loaded in the third, before giving up a tie-breaking grand slam to Casey Schmitt.
Most of all, where Webb played the part of a contending team’s staff ace, lowering his earned-run average to 2.58 (fifth-best in the National League), Yamamoto faltered in a way that’s become uncomfortably familiar of late, his ERA rising to 2.64 despite an almost flawless opening month.
In his first seven starts, Yamamoto was 4-2 with a 0.90 ERA, a 0.925 WHIP and only one game in which he gave up even two earned runs.
“Right now, he’s pitching like the best pitcher in the world,” catcher Will Smith said on May 2, after Yamamoto pitched six shutout innings against the Atlanta Braves.
Since then, Yamamoto has been on a different planet — and not a good one.
Over his last seven outings, the 26-year-old Japanese star is 2-3 with a 4.46 ERA. In that span, he has more starts of less than five innings (two) than of seven full innings (one). He has given up three or more runs four times. And Friday was the second in which he was scored on five times, tying his MLB career-high.
The most consistent problem during that slump: Poor command.
Yamamoto has walked 17 batters in his last 38 ⅓ innings. And when he isn’t issuing free passes, he is putting himself in bad counts, like when Willy Adames opened the scoring Friday by getting ahead 2-and-0 and hitting a down-the-middle fastball to right for a solo home run.
Another potential factor in Yamamoto’s recent struggles: He has been forced to pitch on less rest between starts.
Over his first seven starts, Yamamoto pitched on at least six days of rest — mirroring the once-per-week schedule he had in Japan.
Since then, however, each of his outings have come on only five days’ rest.
Yamamoto has downplayed that factor in the past. And last year, he actually had slightly better numbers on five days of rest (2.97 ERA in 11 starts) than six (3.07 ERA in starts).
Still, for a Dodgers staff that has been shorthanded — leaving the club without the luxury of starting Yamamoto only once a week — it has been a marked drop-off, coming at a time when their once three-game lead in a competitive NL West has quickly evaporated amid a grueling stretch of the schedule.
The Dodgers’ lineup, of course, didn’t help Yamamoto much, either.
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After scoring on an Andy Pages sacrifice fly in the second, when a throw home beat Smith but was dropped by Giants catcher Andrew Knizner while trying to apply a tag, the team’s only other production against Webb came via Teoscar Hernández, who lined the Dodgers’ first hit to right in the fourth before homering for a second-straight game on a solo blast in the seventh.
By then, however, Webb had already put the game on ice, becoming the latest starting pitcher this month to handle the Dodgers’ star-studded lineup (opposing starters have a 2.43 ERA against the Dodgers in June, and are averaging almost six innings per start).
It made Yamamoto’s clunker all the more costly, highlighting an extended slide in production that continues to plague the team’s only healthy ace.
ST. LOUIS — The Dodgers’ offensive woes went from worrisome to a five-alarm emergency Saturday when they were lost their second game in less than 24 hours, falling 2-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Nolan Gorman started the winning rally with a ground-rule double in the ninth. He gave way to pinch-runner Jose Barrero, who moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Pedro Pages before scoring on Nolan Arenado’s pinch-hit single off Dodgers reliever Ben Casparius (4-1) to end the game.
The Cardinals appeared to have won the game in the eighth when Alec Burleson hit a one-hop comebacker that ricocheted off Casparius with two out. Casparius chased after the ball and made a hurried throw to first that pulled Freddie Freeman off the bag, allowing Masyn Winn to race home.
But the Dodgers matched that in the ninth on consecutive one-out singles by Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts. Freeman then struck out swinging, but the ball got away from catcher Pedro Pages, allowing Ohtani to score to tie the game.
The Dodgers left 12 runners on base and were hitless in 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position. They are one for 25 with runners in scoring position in their two games in St. Louis.
The slump couldn’t come at a worst team for the Dodgers, who begin a three-game series Monday in San Diego. The Padres entered Saturday a game back of the Dodgers in the National League West.
The Dodgers wasted a splendid performance from starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who allowed four hits while striking out nine in six scoreless innings, lowing his earned-run average to 2.20.
No Japanese pitcher has ever led an American major league in ERA; the Cubs’ Yu Darvish came closest when his 2.01 mark in the COVID-shortened 2020 season was second-best in the National League. Only two NL pitchers have better marks than Yamamoto this season.
The right-hander won four ERA titles in seven seasons with Orix in the Japanese Pacific League. Only Kazuhisa Inao, who debuted in 1956, won more. Three times Yamamoto had ERAs under 1.69 and his career mark in Japan was 1.72 in 188 starts.
Dave Roberts downplayed the easy narrative on Sunday afternoon.
“No,” he said when asked if his Dodgers had the New York Yankees’ proverbial number, having followed up their defeat of the Bronx Bombers in last year’s World Series with two impressive wins to start this weekend’s rematch at Dodger Stadium.
“I think we’ve had their number the last two nights,” Roberts said, “but today’s a different day.”
Was it ever.
Twenty-four hours after a total annihilation of the Yankees in a 16-run rout on Saturday, the Dodgers suffered the kind of setback that has so often plagued them this season, squandering the chance to build further momentum in a 7-3 loss that prevented a series sweep.
For as complete a performance as the Dodgers (36-23) put together Saturday, they looked equally out of sorts in a “Sunday Night Baseball” finale, getting a rare bad start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, mistakes on defense and basepaths that cost them early runs, and virtually nothing from a lineup that looked largely discombobulated against funky left-hander (and former Dodgers swingman) Ryan Yarbrough.
They might have come out of the weekend with a marquee series win, continuing to nurse a narrow lead in the National League West standings.
But, they invited more scrutiny over their inconsistent start to the season with a finale flop, dropping to 13-13 over their last 26 games.
“You got to focus on the positives,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “We just took two of three from a really, really good team. We’re obviously upset that we didn’t get this one. But we played two really good games. … Just [today] the result wasn’t there.”
Yamamoto had been the one constant in the Dodgers’ injury-plagued rotation. His 1.97 earned-run average was second in the NL. His 64 innings not only led the team, but were almost twice as many as anyone else besides Dustin May.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto shouts in frustration after giving up a home run to New York’s Ben Rice in the third inning.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Yamamoto also had an impressive personal track record against the Yankees (36-22), shutting them out over seven innings in New York last June before delivering 6 ⅓ innings of one-run ball in Game 2 of the World Series.
On Sunday, however, he couldn’t consistently find the strike zone or execute his trademark splitter. And after scoring just two runs in their previous 15 innings in this series, the Yankees finally came to life at the plate.
“I was not being able to control my pitches,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “During the game, I was trying to make an adjustment, but … I could not get it back, my stuff.”
In the first, Trent Grisham singled and Ben Rice walked before Jasson Domínguez dumped a line drive into left, driving in a run when Andy Pages airmailed his throw to home plate.
In the third, a leadoff walk to Judge was followed by a two-run homer to Rice — Yamamoto missing badly with two splitters in the first at-bat before leaving one hanging in the next.
Later in the inning, the Yankees scored again after Yamamoto gave up two singles and spiked a splitter for a run-scoring wild pitch.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani strikes out against the Yankees in the first inning Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
And with two outs in the fourth, Roberts pulled Yamamoto, his pitch count having ballooned to 96 on a day he gave up a season-high in hits (seven) and walked three others. It was the first time this year that Yamamoto, whose ERA rose to 2.39, had failed to complete the fifth.
“He wasn’t great today, wasn’t sharp with any of his pitches,” Roberts said. “Really uncharacteristic.”
The Dodgers faltered in other ways, as well.
After his first-inning throwing error, Pages made a mistake on the bases in the second. Following a one-out double, he was thrown out on an over-aggressive steal of third. That meant that when Tommy Edman homered moments later — his first long ball in 17 games, breaking him out of a recent funk at the plate — it was only a solo blast, temporarily tying the score before the Yankees answered in the next half-inning.
There would be no counterpunch from Dodgers’ offense, which was missing Mookie Betts for a third-straight game because of a toe fracture (Betts said before the game his toe was starting to feel better, and went through pregame activities in hopes of avoiding a stint on the injured list).
Instead, Yarbrough cruised against the team that dealt him away at last year’s trade deadline.
Even though he never hit 90 mph with his fastball, he induced a string of soft contact while striking out five in a six-inning start. Yarbrough was especially effective against the top of the Dodgers’ order, which went a combined 0 for 16.
“It’s funky,” catcher Will Smith, who was batting cleanup, said of Yarbrough’s unorthodox delivery. “We gave them a little momentum. They jumped on us early [with] some long innings. So he did a good job attacking us and keeping us off balance.”
The Dodgers did show some life after Yarbrough’s exit, with Pages and Muncy each taking reliever Jonathan Loáisiga deep within the space of three at-bats.
But by then, it was much too little, much too late — resulting in the Dodgers’ second straight series in which they failed to complete a sweep, and yet another momentum-halting loss in a season plagued by a few too many of them.
“I think for us, the takeaway is we won a series and that was the goal coming in,” Roberts said. “I think at the end of the day, you keep winning series and things will take care of themselves.”
CLEVELAND — It had been a while since the Dodgers’ last stress-free win.
Over their previous nine games entering Monday, the team had won just three times — and needed extra-innings after blown ninth-inning saves in two of them, and a late-game go-ahead home run from Teoscar Hernández in the other.
Such theatrics underscored the club’s underwhelming play in recent weeks, with manager Dave Roberts bemoaning everything from poor fundamentals, to continued pitching injuries, to a lineup that had most of all gotten back out of sync.
“We’ve got to kind of lock in our hitting zone,” Roberts said Monday afternoon, “and continue to take good swings.”
In a 7-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians on Memorial Day, the Dodgers finally did.
While Yoshinobu Yamamoto cruised through a six-inning, two-run start, the club’s lineup waking from a recent lull that had seen them fail to top five runs (excluding extra innings) in each of their last seven games.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, left, runs the bases after leading off the game with a home run against the Cleveland Guardians on May 26.
(David Dermer / Associated Press)
Shohei Ohtani provided an early spark, hitting a leadoff home run for the second-straight game to take the MLB lead with 19 long balls. Andy Pages added an RBI single in the second inning, before the Dodgers mounted two extended rallies in the fifth and sixth, scoring two runs in each inning.
The bullpen was shakier, Alex Vesia having to strand two runners in the seventh before Tanner Scott — coming off two blown saves in his previous three outings — worked around José Ramírez’s second double of the game in the eighth for Cleveland (29-24).
But in the top of the ninth, Will Smith punctuated the night with a home run over the tall left-field wall at Progressive Field to ensure the Dodgers (33-21) got back in the win column.
Tuesday didn’t start as a game the Dodgers necessarily had to win.
But, by the time extra innings arrived on a nervy night at Dodger Stadium, the team was in a situation where they simply couldn’t afford to lose.
Not after entering the day with four consecutive losses, a season-long skid caused primarily by a banged-up pitching staff. Not after Yoshinobu Yamamoto looked like an ace, a stopper and a Cy Young candidate all wrapped in one, spinning seven scoreless innings in a nine-strikeout gem. And certainly not with his brilliance in danger of being wasted after closer Tanner Scott blew a one-run lead in the top of the ninth inning before yielding a two-run blast in the top of the 10th.
“I don’t know if it was a must-win,” manager Dave Roberts said, sidestepping such superlatives with the season still only two months old. “But certainly given Yoshi’s outing, you don’t wanna waste that … You just can’t lose on nights that Yamamoto throws [that well].”
Somehow, in a 4-3 walk-off victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t; flipping the script, changing the narrative and snapping their losing streak with the most dramatic of endings.
Down by two runs entering the bottom of the 10th, the Dodgers immediately cut the deficit in half with a leadoff RBI double from Tommy Edman. Shohei Ohtani was intentionally walked, Mookie Betts advanced Edman with a fly ball, Ohtani stole second, and Freddie Freeman was intentionally walked with first base open. With the bases loaded, Will Smith got plunked by former Dodgers reliever Shelby Miller to force home the tying score. And then, finally, Max Muncy walked it off with a sacrifice fly to deep center, easily scoring Ohtani from third for a victory that felt both hard-earned and hardly deserved.
“I think it showed a lot out of us,” Muncy said afterward, standing in a celebratory clubhouse after what could prove to be a pivotal point in the season.
“We got punched in the mouth, and for us to punch right back, I think that was really big out of the group, out of the guys,” Muncy added. “Everyone not giving up, not hanging their head — we still had a chance to win the game. And guys went out there and did it.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto reacts after striking out Arizona’s Pavin Smith to retire end the seventh inning.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Winning, of course, should have been a much simpler task for the Dodgers (30-19) on Tuesday night.
Yamamoto was spectacular, giving up no hits through his first six innings, stranding runners on the corners to complete his night in the seventh, and providing the Dodgers with the kind of outing that has been missing from their rotation amid a wave of crippling injuries over the last several weeks.
“Yoshi was fantastic,” Roberts said. “We needed every bit of it.”
An equally banged-up bullpen avoided disaster in the eighth, when Alex Vesia and Ben Casparius combined to work through a bases-loaded jam that preserved a narrow 1-0 lead.
“We just kept fighting,” Smith said. “That [was a] big shutdown inning.”
But all along, the Dodgers failed to open any cushion to fall back on late. Their only early scoring was courtesy of back-to-back two-out doubles from Freeman and Smith in the bottom of the fourth. In the seventh and eighth, they squandered opportunities for insurance, stranding a leadoff single from Muncy and a one-out double from Ohtani.
That meant, when Scott caught too much plate with an up-and-in fastball to Gabriel Moreno in the ninth, all it took was one swing to change the game, Moreno skying a solo blast that carried just far enough down the left field line.
“Just left it too much on the plate,” said Scott, who blew his third save in 12 opportunities.
Freddie Freeman scores on a double by Will Smith in the fourth inning.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
After the Dodgers came up empty again in the ninth — Kiké Hernández struck out in what started as a 3-and-0 count with two runners aboard — Scott made the same mistake to Corbin Carroll in the 10th, serving up a belt-high fastball the undersized slugger whacked the other way for a two-run blast.
“You sit there in the [10th] inning, you’re down two runs, and your bullpen is completely taxed,” Roberts said, “those [kind of losses] really sting.”
Instead, the Dodgers rallied, with Anthony Banda limiting any further damage in the top of the 10th before the lineup rallied in the bottom half.
“It’s a big swing,” Roberts said. “To get a win tonight, I’m gonna sleep a lot better.”
Without Yamamoto, none of it would have been possible.
After giving up eight runs over 11 combined innings in his previous two starts, every part of the 26-year-old right-hander’s stuff played up on Tuesday night. His fastball averaged 96 mph. His curveball induced one helpless swing from the Diamondbacks (26-23) after another. And until Ketel Marte singled on a line drive off the wall to lead off the seventh, it was starting to seem like an elevated pitch count (Yamamoto began that inning with 90 pitches, and finished his outing with an MLB career high of 110) might be the only thing standing between him and a pursuit of a nine-inning no-no.
“I thought he was going to go the distance tonight,” Muncy said of Yamamoto, who dropped his ERA to 1.86 with his third career MLB start of seven scoreless frames. “I thought he had the stuff to get the no-hitter.”
That’s why, when the game started to spiral out of control later, and their losing streak seemed primed to continue in the most painful way possible, the Dodgers entered the 10th inning knowing they needed to respond, and wary of the repercussions that would have accompanied such a crushing, wasteful loss.
“They [tied it] and then flipped the game, but we came back,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter afterward, his no-decision not feeling so bad after what transpired in the bottom of the 10th.
“A win like this is great,” he added.
Echoed Roberts: “We just put some at-bats together, man. And it was much needed.”
