What an outing from Yoshinobu Yamamoto. A day after Blake Snell went eight innings for the Dodgers and faced the minimum, Yamamoto turned in the first complete game we have seen in the playoffs since 2017 to lift the Dodgers to a 5-1 victory over the Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.
This has been part of the theme so far for Dodgers starters this postseason, who, through eight games, are just 7 1/3 innings shy of matching the number of innings covered by starters in the 16 games played en route to the 2024 title.
The Dodgers are the first team to get seven starts of at least six innings in their first eight games of a postseason since the 2013 Tigers (also seven).
Here’s a look at nine fun stats and facts about Yamamoto’s performance and the Dodgers’ rotation this postseason:
- The complete game is certainly a rarer feat than it used to be, and especially so in the playoffs, where every move is triple-guessed. Yamamoto’s was the first postseason complete game since then-Astro Justin Verlander against the Yankees in 2017 ALCS Game 2 — on the same date, Oct. 14. It’s the first for the Dodgers in the postseason since Jose Lima in 2004 NLDS Game 3. And it’s the first by a Japanese-born pitcher in a postseason game.
- Doing this on the heels of Snell’s start is even more impressive. The Dodgers are the first team with back-to-back starts of at least eight innings in the postseason since the 2016 Giants, with Madison Bumgarner in the Wild Card Game and Johnny Cueto in NLDS Game 1. It’s the first time a team has done this in consecutive games in the same series since the 2010 Giants in World Series Games 4 and 5 (Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum).
- The last time the Dodgers had consecutive starts of at least eight innings in the postseason? 1988, in Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS, from Orel Hershiser and Tim Belcher.
- The Dodgers are the fifth team in the past 50 years to have starters go at least eight innings and allow one or no runs in each of the first two games of a postseason series. The last time it happened was also at the hands of Dodgers pitching, in the 1983 NLCS. Before that, it was a trio of teams in the 1981 Division Series -- the Dodgers, again, along with the A’s and Astros. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s five instances in the past 50 years, three of them by the Dodgers.
- How dominant was Yamamoto? He did not allow an opponent to bat with a runner in scoring position. That last happened in Roy Halladay’s 2010 NLDS Game 1 no-hitter. The only other pitcher to do so in the past 20 years was Jon Garland in 2005 ALCS Game 3.
- Yes, Yamamoto allowed a leadoff homer. In many ways, that makes what he did even more impressive. He became just the fourth pitcher to allow a leadoff home run and throw a complete game in postseason history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He joined Johnny Antonelli (1954 World Series Game 2), Johnny Beazley (1942 World Series Game 5) and Babe Adams (1909 World Series Game 5). Only Yamamoto and Antonelli also allowed no other runs along the way.
- The Dodgers didn’t throw a complete game in the regular season this year. They are the second team to not throw a complete game in the regular season and then throw one in that postseason, joining the 2016 Blue Jays. But Toronto’s, which was twirled by Marco Estrada, was only eight innings and came in a loss. So, the Dodgers are the first to do so in a win.
- The Dodgers have allowed just five hits so far in the series. That’s tied with the 1906 Cubs in the World Series for the second-fewest hits allowed in the first two games of a postseason series. Only the 2019 Nationals allowed fewer, with just four hits surrendered in the first two games of the NLCS.
- Dodgers starters have a 1.54 ERA so far this postseason. That’s the lowest by any rotation with at least 30 innings pitched in its first eight games of a postseason since the 2012 Tigers, who had a 0.96 ERA. The only other teams with lower starters' ERAs in their first eight games were the 1972 A’s (1.33), 1981 Dodgers (1.44) and 1995 Cleveland (1.46).