Three months earlier, Yamamoto didn’t make it out of the first inning for the first time in his Major League career on July 7 at American Family Field. That night, the Brewers alternated between being aggressive early in counts and grinding out at-bats, drawing a pair of walks and notching four hits while ambushing Yamamoto for five runs (three earned) in two-thirds of an inning.
Unlike that prior start, Yamamoto did not let things speed up on him. His first start against the Brewers was the shortest of his big league career; he responded with his longest in Game 2 of the NL Championship Series: his first complete game as a Major Leaguer.
Yamamoto matched the Brewers’ aggression at the plate with some of his own, holding them scoreless across his final eight innings in a 5-1 win on Tuesday. One night after Blake Snell authored one of the greatest starts in Dodgers postseason history, Yamamoto continued the rotation’s dominance with nine innings of one-run ball.
It was the first complete game thrown by a Dodger in the postseason since José Lima shut out the Cardinals in Game 3 of the 2004 NLDS. Before Tuesday, the most recent complete game in the postseason was thrown by Justin Verlander in the 2017 ALCS. Yamamoto is the first Japanese-born player to throw a complete game in the MLB postseason.
As the series shifts back to L.A., the Dodgers have positioned themselves well to make a return trip to the World Series. In postseason history, teams taking a 2-0 lead in any best-of-seven series have gone on to take that series 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%).
Dating back to last year, Yamamoto has come alive on the postseason stage. But he stumbled in his previous start, giving up three runs in four-plus innings against the Phillies in Game 3 of the NL Division Series.
Six days later, with freshly dyed hair, Yamamoto rose to the occasion once more under the lights. He struck out seven, walked one and scattered three hits across nine innings on 111 pitches, punching out his final batter — Andrew Vaughn — to send the Brewers’ home crowd heading for the exits in subdued silence.
