TORONTO — The first time Yoshinobu Yamamoto tortured hitters for nine innings, even he seemed impressed. “Wow,” he whispered as he allowed himself a single round of applause into his glove. That was all of 11 days ago.
By the time he did it again Saturday, this time in Game 2 of the World Series for the Dodgers against the Blue Jays, he was used to it. As he induced a popout to third for the final out of a 5–1 victory to even the series at a game apiece, he just grinned.
His manager was less reserved. “Outstanding, uber competitive, special,” said Dave Roberts. “Yeah, he was just locked in tonight. He said before the series: ‘Losing is not an option.' And he had that look tonight.”
The line—nine innings, eight strikeouts, four hits, no walks, 105 pitches—did not quite convey Yamamoto’s dominance. The ballpark did. The sellout crowd of 44,607, which shook Rogers Centre in Game 1, was reduced to halfhearted responses to the video board’s exhortations by the seventh inning. Yamamoto retired the last 20 hitters he faced, including striking out the side in the eighth. When Guerrero grounded to first to lead off the ninth, they could barely bring themselves to groan. And when it was over, they just headed for the exits.
Before last week, the last postseason complete game came when Justin Verlander did it for the Astros in 2017, and the last one in the World Series was authored by Madison Bumgarner for the ’14 Giants. Now Yamamoto has done it twice in consecutive starts. It marked the first time a pitcher achieved such a feat since Curt Schilling did it for the ’01 Diamondbacks a remarkable three straight times—in Game 1 of the NLDS, Game 5 of the NLDS and Game 3 of the NLCS—and the first time a pitcher did it on this stage since Orel Hershiser did the same thing for the 1988 Dodgers, in Game 7 of the NLCS, Game 2 of the World Series and Game 5 of the World Series.
And Yamamoto did it on a night when he didn’t have his best stuff. His four-seamer, his most trusted of his seven pitches, deserted him, so he largely deserted it, leaning instead on his devastating slider and confounding curveball, with a few cutters, sliders and sinkers mixed in to keep the Blue Jays honest.
He was so effective that Toronto manager John Schneider could not fault his own hitters. “He was just that good,” he said. “He made it hard for us to make him work. He was in the zone, split was in and out of the zone. It was a really good performance by him.”
At first, it did not seem like that kind of night. As the series opened, some observers had cast it as a David vs. Goliath battle. The Blue Jays insisted they were not interested in the opinions of anyone outside their clubhouse, but the description still rankled them. Sure, the Dodgers’ payroll ranks No. 1 in the league and its lineup begins with three Hall of Famers—Ohtani, Betts and Freeman. Ohtani chose L.A. over Toronto. Yamamoto is the highest-paid pitcher in history, at $325 million over 12 years. But the Blue Jays’ payroll is No. 5, and they recently signed 26-year-old, five-time All-Star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to a 14-year, $500 million extension, to lock him in with DH George Springer, the active No. 2 in postseason home runs. (Not for nothing, the Blue Jays also won one more game than the Dodgers did this year.)
“I think so many fans and so many media members will sit here and say, ‘Toronto’s always second place, Toronto’s always third place for these megastars,’” said righty Chris Bassitt before the series started. “They’re second place out of 30 and you’re punishing them for going after megastars and not getting them. I guarantee you there are 20 other organizations wishing they were going after megastars. Just because they’re not getting three, four, five guys, I think it’s ridiculous, because you’ve got Kevin Gausman, you’ve got [José] Berrios, you’ve got Bo [Bichette] here, Vladdy here, George Springer here, Max Scherzer here.
“To sit here and be like, three, four guys didn’t come and you’re supposed to feel bad for that? It’s a big discredit to all the really good players they got to come here.”
So when they exploded for nine runs in the sixth inning of Game 1 to win 11–4, no one in that clubhouse was surprised. Neither were the Dodgers.
“These guys aren’t going to go away,” said Roberts. “They’re very confident. It’s a very talented team.”
Springer led off the bottom of the inning with a double and held at third on a Lukes single. Yamamoto wriggled out of the jam, striking out Guerrero on a 3–2 curveball at the knees, inducing a lineout from Alejandro Kirk and striking out Daulton Varsho, but the 23 first-inning pitches Yamamoto threw taxed him. So did having to work around a leadoff single by Ernie Clement, generously granted by the official scorer after Freeman overran his 36-foot popup (hit probability, per Statcast: 0%). At that point Roberts was hoping his starter would complete six innings. The Blue Jays finally broke through in the third, after Yamamoto hit Springer with a pitch, allowed a single to Guerrero and then got a sacrifice fly from Varsho. That marked three straight innings in which the leadoff man reached, usually Yamamoto’s strength: In the regular season, the first batter of an inning had a .167 OBP against him, fifth best among pitchers who made at least 20 starts.It also marked the last time a Blue Jay would reach base.
Meanwhile, Gausman was baffling the Dodgers, too. After allowing a run in the first on a double and an RBI single, he retired the next 17 hitters in order, including inducing two popouts by Ohtani to the third baseman in foul territory.
After seven middling years in Baltimore, Atlanta and Cincinnati, Gausman signed with the Giants before the 2020 season and became a completely different pitcher.
“They kind of told me, ,” he recalled before Game 1. “I kind of thought they were crazy, to be honest. Didn’t know kind of why they thought it would work.”
But Covid hit and he realized he would only make 10 starts anyway, so he would likely be able to get a job even if the experiment was a disaster. It was a ringing success. “I was three starts in, and I was like, I’m never going to pitch any different than this,” he said. He finished the year with a career-low 3.62 ERA, and he has since been an All-Star twice. Before the 2022 season, he signed a five-year, $110 million contract with Toronto, and for 19 outs on Saturday, he was exactly the big-game pitcher the Blue Jays sought.
But the difference between excelling and falling short is often only inches wide, and so it was for Gausman on Saturday. Will Smith worked a full count, only the second three-ball count of the night for Gausman, and the pitcher missed his spot with a four-seamer. It was supposed to be outside. It was inside, and then suddenly it was outside of the wall. A batter later, Gausman made another mistake to Max Muncy, who was late but muscled the ball into the left-field bullpen anyway.
That was the end of Gausman’s night. The Dodgers tacked on two more against the Blue Jays’ bullpen, but the cushion was not enough for Roberts to turn to his bedraggled unit, which has a 6.16 ERA this month and which surrendered Game 1. He never discussed removing Yamamoto, not with the pitcher and not with pitching coach Mark Prior. “It was a no-brainer,” said the manager.He did not even have a reliever up until the ninth, when he told Roki Sasaki—his only reliable bullpen arm—to get warm. But Roberts didn’t need him. All he needed was Yamamoto—again.
