As the Dodgers look to turn back the clock and become the first team in a quarter century to repeat as champions, Yamamoto is doing things on the mound that haven’t been seen in nearly as long.
Yamamoto is the first pitcher with back-to-back complete games in the postseason since the D-backs’ Curt Schilling in 2001, and the first Dodger since Orel Hershiser in 1988. The most recent pitcher with multiple complete games in the postseason was the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner in 2014.
“It’s been fun these last two outings,” said catcher Will Smith, whose seventh-inning homer broke the tie and put the Dodgers ahead for good. “[Yamamoto] can kind of do everything. Locate his fastball so well. He’s got the curveball, the split. Throwing some good cutters today, some two-seams. He just kind of had everything going and really keeping them off balance.”
Early on in his outing, Yamamoto labored some, needing 23 pitches to complete the first inning. He continued to work around traffic through the third, when he allowed his lone run on an Alejandro Kirk sacrifice fly.
But from then on, Yamamoto was untouchable. Beginning with Kirk, Yamamoto retired his final 20 batters, completing the gem by getting Daulton Varsho to pop out to third base. In all, Yamamoto struck out eight and allowed just the one run on four hits.
“I was trying to go into the game relaxed, but it’s a World Series,” Yamamoto said on FOX through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “Kind of early on, I was throwing with unnecessary tension. I just adjusted that as the game went on.”
Yamamoto is the first Dodgers pitcher with eight-plus strikeouts and zero walks in a World Series complete game since Sandy Koufax’s Game 4 clincher in 1963.
