TORONTO — A signature staple of this Blue Jays offense has been its ability to grind out at-bats, so often making life miserable for opposing pitchers by pushing them to the point of exhaustion and an early exit.
It took all the way until Game 2 of the World Series. But this pesky bunch of Toronto hitters finally ran into a buzzsaw capable of truly shutting them down in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who pulled the series even at 1-1 with a complete-game one-run gem on Saturday night in the Blue Jays’ 5-1 loss to the Dodgers at Rogers Centre.
Yamamoto, who became the first pitcher to throw back-to-back complete games in the postseason since Curt Schilling’s three straight in 2001 with the D-backs, kept the Blue Jays in a constant state of confusion by effectively mixing six different pitches.
It was the first time a pitcher had thrown a complete game against Toronto in 2025. Only two pitchers came relatively close during the regular season: Red Sox lefty Garrett Crochet (Sept. 24) and Royals righty Michael Wacha (Aug. 1), who each went a season-high eight innings by an opposing pitcher against the Blue Jays.
“Second complete game in a row in the postseason; that’s pretty impressive,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider 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.”
The first inning against Yamamoto was promising. Much like the opening frame of Game 1 — which saw the Blue Jays wear out Blake Snell with 29 pitches — Yamamoto labored on Saturday with 23 pitches in the first before escaping a first-and-third, no-out jam scoreless.
It looked like the Blue Jays might break through in the third, when they tied the score on a sacrifice fly by Alejandro Kirk. Instead, that sac fly was their last semblance of life, with Yamamoto finishing the game by retiring his final 20 batters and finishing with a total of 105 pitches (73 strikes).
“He was just putting pitches where he wanted them,” said Blue Jays left fielder Nathan Lukes. “He escaped a pretty nifty inning in the first. He just made his pitches. He did his job.”
What stood out about Yamamoto was not much different than what he has done for most of this year. There was the funky delivery, unique with a leg kick and short arm path that makes it difficult to find any sort of rhythm at the plate.
“Like everyone, you do a lot of work to get ready for it,” Schneider said. “[We] were ready. I think that you just give him credit. He tunneled everything really well, held his velo, spotted his heater really well. I don’t think it was for a lack of prep. It’s deception. There’s definitely some deception in the delivery, too. He was on his game.”
The assortment of pitches was also on point, whether it be the curveball that served as the putaway pitch on four of his eight strikeouts or the nasty splitter that accounted for six of his 17 total whiffs.
At its best, this Blue Jays lineup can also draw walks with the best of them. Yamamoto made sure there was no chance that a rally was going to start as a result of free bases. Though Yamamoto did hit a batter, he issued zero walks. Toronto went only seven regular-season games without a walk, tied for fourth fewest in MLB in 2025.
“He’s not a guy that you can sit back and kind of wait for him to make a mistake,” Blue Jays designated hitter George Springer said. “He didn’t make a lot of mistakes tonight. Again, hats off to him. Back-to-back complete games, that’s special.”
When Yamamoto is on like this, it’s likely going to be a long night for any group that stands in the box against him. If the Blue Jays are looking for any kind of hope should they encounter him again over the next week, perhaps it’s that they were able to put the ball in play with 11 groundouts and three flyouts, which could lead to a better result next time out.
“Balls didn’t go through for us,” Lukes said. “That definitely limited what we were able to do against him. Hats off. On to the next one.”
