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Eleven days after going the distance against the Brewers in a complete-game effort in the NLCS, Yoshinobu Yamamoto did it again on baseball’s biggest stage Saturday night in Toronto.
The Dodgers’ $325 million man delivered his second straight postseason complete game, becoming the first to accomplish the feat since Curt Schilling in 2001, this time flummoxing the Blue Jays in a 5-1 win to tie the World Series at a game apiece.
Here are my takeaways:
1. Yamamoto goes the distance again
The Blue Jays entered the night hitting .305 with more home runs than any team this postseason. Yamamoto did not appear to care.
After allowing one run in nine innings his last time out in Game 2 of the NLCS, Yamamoto did it again in his first start of the World Series.
The Dodgers starter retired the last 20 batters he faced Saturday night, allowing just five baserunners and striking out eight without walking a batter (though he did hit one with a pitch). The way the opposing starter Kevin Gausman was going (allowing just one run through his first six innings of work), Yamamoto’s effort was crucial.
Much like Game 1, when the Blue Jays forced Blake Snell to throw 29 pitches in the first inning, Toronto made the Dodgers’ starter work early. Yamamoto left a two-strike pitch down the middle to George Springer, who started the game with a double. Nathan Lukes followed with a single. It was a 23-pitch frame, but Yamamoto worked his way out of the jam.
And unlike Game 1, the laborious inning was not a sign of things to come.
Yamamoto needed only 37 pitches over his next four innings, allowing just an Alejandro KIrk sacrifice fly. Through seven, he had only thrown 79 pitches and had retired 14 straight. He needed only 105 pitches to finish the job, keeping the Blue Jays off balance with his vast arsenal. He got a combined 11 called strikes and whiffs on his splitter, nine on his curveball, seven on his four-seamer and four on his cutter.
Dating back to last year’s World Series, Yamamoto has a 1.54 ERA over his last five playoff starts, earning every dollar of that nine-figure deal.
Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto reflects on HISTORIC complete game in Game 2 of World Series 🔥
2. Gausman’s fastball-heavy approach only took him so far
Entering the World Series, Gausman threw at least 35% splitters in each of his four outings this postseason. Opponents were just 1-for-28 against the pitch, and the Dodgers were clearly looking for it.
So Gausman went a different direction, throwing 60% four-seamers. For six innings, it worked, despite many of them leaking over the plate. The Dodgers seemed perplexed. Through six innings, the Dodgers watched 15 four-seamers go by for called strikes and put another 12 in play for outs.
That led to quick innings for Gausman, who was only at 82 pitches when he was pulled with two outs in the seventh. By then, though, the Dodgers finally caught up to the heater.
(Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
Following an RBI single from Will Smith in the first inning, Gausman retired 17 straight batters before it was Smith again who got to him with a towering 404-foot blast on a four-seamer that the catcher turned on to put the Dodgers ahead again. Two batters later, Max Muncy added another homer to give Yamamoto some breathing room and end Gausman’s night.
It was a quality start for Gausman, who had gone 322 career starts prior to making his World Series debut — the third-most among active pitchers — but it just wasn’t enough to match Yamamoto.
3. Smith breaks out as Dodgers’ offense finds late life
The dangerous thing about the Dodgers’ lineup: Even if Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman aren’t going, there are plenty of others who can carry a team through a game or a series.
In Game 2, it was Smith, a welcome sight for a Dodgers team that had missed his bat for most of September.
The Dodgers catcher fractured his hand last month and wasn’t able to play in the wild-card series to start the postseason. He didn’t return to catching until the middle of the NLDS, and he didn’t have an extra-base hit in the playoffs entering Saturday.
Then came the breakout.
Smith fractured his hand in September, wasn’t able to catch in the wild-card series to start the postseason and didn’t have an extra-base hit in the playoffs until his Game 2 performance.
He gave the Dodgers the lead with a single in the first, broke a tie in the seventh with his first home run of the playoffs, then knocked in another run in the eighth with an RBI groundout. He had three of the Dodgers’ four RBI and two of their six hits on the night.
Will Smith & Max Muncy hit CLUTCH homers to give Dodgers 3-1 lead in World Series Game 2 💥
4. Blue Jays have their own bullpen concerns
As much focus as there has understandably been on the Dodgers’ shaky bullpen, Toronto is not immune from bullpen distress.
The Blue Jays’ bullpen was one of its biggest areas of concern entering the postseason, and it has demonstrated why this October with a 5.52 ERA entering the World Series.
On Saturday, a wild pitch on Jeff Hoffman’s first throw of the night brought in a run after Louis Varland loaded the bases. The Dodgers tacked on another insurance run to create more distance.
4 ½. Next up…
The Dodgers will return to Los Angeles in the driver’s seat of the series, taking back home-field advantage. Needless to say, the late offensive surge was vital.
The World Series has been tied 1-1 on 63 prior occasions, with the winner of Game 3 going on to win the series 42 times.
It will be former Dodger Max Scherzer — who knocked Gausman’s Giants out of the postseason in 2021 — against Tyler Glasnow in Game 3.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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