MILWAUKEE — For years, Major League teams have sought creative ways to record 27 outs in October. Managers turn to openers. They limit traditional starters to three innings or fewer. They endeavor not to overexpose their arms.
The 2025 Dodgers, though? They’re kicking it old school.
This is partly out of necessity, partly by design. No matter the reason, at a time of year when most modern teams zig, the Dodgers — a modern operation if ever there was one — are very much zagging. On Tuesday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto twirled a complete game to lead the Dodgers to a 5-1 victory over the Brewers in National League Championship Series Game 2. That performance came one night after Blake Snell faced the minimum through eight innings of another win, making those two the first teammates to deliver consecutive postseason starts of at least eight innings since San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto in 2016.
“It almost felt like Yoshi said he had to one-up Blake last night. He went the full distance,” said Max Muncy, who homered in the sixth to become the Dodgers’ postseason home run leader (14). “Both guys, unbelievable. And knowing what they want to do out there. For Yoshi, giving up the leadoff home run and not letting that faze him at all, incredible.”
Largely on the strength of that starting pitching, the Dodgers have taken a 2-0 NLCS lead at American Family Field, with the series set to shift to Los Angeles on Thursday. In postseason history, teams taking a 2-0 lead in any best-of-seven series have gone on to win it 78 of 93 times (83.9%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams winning both Games 1 and 2 on the road have prevailed in the series 24 of 27 times (88.9%).
The last club to rally from a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series was the D-backs against the Phillies in the 2023 NLCS, but the last team to do so after losing the first two games at home was the Yankees against the Braves in the 1996 World Series. In other words, what the Brewers are now trying to accomplish is really, really hard — harder by far than their task seemed at the start of the week.
For Los Angeles, the difference has been all about pitching. Dodgers starters have recorded more than two-thirds of their outs this postseason, making them the only team still alive that has coaxed even half its outs that way. That’s partly due to how many teams turn to openers this time of year. But consider this: Over their first eight playoff games, the Dodgers have received seven starts of six-plus innings, making them the first team to accomplish that since the 2013 Tigers.
Although Yamamoto wasn’t quite as dominant as Snell, that’s because his teammate set an almost impossible bar. Yamamoto still came close to matching it. After allowing the third leadoff homer in Brewers postseason history to Jackson Chourio, the right-hander allowed just two more hits, striking out seven. His five-pitch mix resulted in 15 ground-ball outs, stifling Milwaukee’s offense.
“It was amazing. That’s nothing new for us. He’s just doing it in the postseason,” said Teoscar Hernández of Yamamoto on the field postgame. “He’s a superstar. He was struggling last year at the beginning, then he settled in. He just became Yamamoto. The same guy that won MVPs and Cy Youngs in Japan is now doing it in MLB.”
Los Angeles’ own lineup did not exactly thrash Brewers starter Freddy Peralta, but it didn’t need to. A Hernández homer and an Andy Pages RBI double in the second inning gave the Dodgers a lead they would never relinquish. Muncy later added a solo homer, Shohei Ohtani chipped in with an RBI single, and the Dodgers kept pressuring Milwaukee’s bullpen throughout the later innings.
It turned out to be plenty. The Dodgers, a team that led the National League in runs during the regular season but ranked eighth in ERA, have essentially reversed course in the NLCS.
There are two sides to every story, of course, and another way to read this one is that the Brewers simply aren’t hitting. Typifying their struggles is Christian Yelich, who hasn’t recorded an RBI in 15 consecutive postseason games dating to 2020. But Yelich is hardly the only Milwaukee hitter staying off the basepaths.
“We don’t think about that every day, but that’s our goal,” Hernández said of attempting to win back-to-back titles after the Dodges took a 2-0 series lead. “To get back to the playoffs and win another World Series to bring another title back to L.A. — we know it’s not going to be easy. That’s why it hasn’t been done in a while. Just take it one game at a time and keep going.”
