Yoshinobu Yamamoto is simply amazing. There are no words to describe what he has done. Back to back complete game wins, with one in the World Series. The last time that a pitcher pitched back to back complete game in the playoffs was Curt Schilling in 2001.
Yama retired the last 20 batters he faced. After a 23 pitch 1st inning, Yama settled down and threw 82 over the next 8 innings for 105 pitches in 9 innings. He did not issue a walk, and struck out 8.
In his complete game against Milwaukee, he allowed a leadoff HR to Jackson Chourio for the sole run he allowed. In this game, he allowed a leadoff double to George Springer, but he did not score in the first inning. With runners on 1st and 3rd with nobody out, Yama struck out Vlad Guerrero Jr, got Alejandro Kirk to line out to Freddie, and got Daulton Varsho out on strikes.
With a 1-0 lead, Yamamoto hit Springer to open the 3rd. After striking out Nathan Lukes, Vlad slugged a 341 foot single off the left field wall with Springer moving to 3rd. This time Kirk got the ball into the air to CF for the sac fly. No other Blue Jays batter reached 1st after Vlad’s single. That is 20 successive batters. That’s the most consecutive batters retired by a Dodgers pitcher in a postseason game. The previous high was 19 in 1952 WS G5 by Carl Erskine. Yamamoto had 17 swings and misses against a team that does not routinely swing and miss.
Kevin Gausman was pitching a masterpiece himself until the 7th. After Shohei and Mookie flew out in the first, Freddie doubled and scored on a Will Smith single for a quick 1-0 lead. Gausman proceeded to retire the next 17 batters until Will Smith turned on a 4-seamer and hit it into the 2nd deck for a go-ahead solo HR. Before Louis Varland came in to relieve Gausman, Max Muncy went oppo for another solo HR and a 3-1 lead.
We all know that the Dodgers bullpen is suspect at best. However, Toronto’s bullpen has not been all that good either. With Varland on the bump, with one out, Andy Pages grounded a single up the middle. And while he may have earned his reprieve, he just about lost his spot when he almost got picked off 2nd on a Shohei single when he took too big of a turn at 2nd. Addison Barger fired a strike to 2nd and Pages just beat the throw before being tagged out.
Mookie then walked to load the bases and Jeff Hoffman came in to relieve Varland. He threw a WP and a run scored with the other runners moving up. Hoffman then IBB Freddie to reload the bases. Smith then hit a ground ball to SS and instead of coming home, he tried for the DP, but Smith beat the throw and the Dodgers got their 5th run.
There are certainly not enough superlatives to describe Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s pitching. Back to back complete playoff games in this century? I hope he does not have to pitch another game as I hope that Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and Blake Snell win the next 3 games in LA for the repeat WS championship. I do hope that Clayton Kershaw does get one inning in Game 5.
The Dodgers scored 10 runs and 8 runs against Cincinnati in the Wild Card series. In the 10 games since, the Dodgers have not scored more than 5 in any game, and they did that in all of 4 games. And yet the Dodgers have won 8 of those 10. Dodgers starting pitching is sooooooooo good.
Win or lose the World Series, the Dodgers need to fire Robert Von Scoyoc. I have never seen a team hit so many pop up and warning track fly outs. Yama gave up 3 air outs, while the Dodgers hit into 12 fly outs, 5 pop outs, 7 K, and 3 ground outs. The Dodgers have no 2 strike approach.
Okay, I got my editorial comment off my chest.
If you look carefully, that wild pitch hit Freeman in the toe and bounced away from Kirk. Umpires missed that and Freddie did not try to sell it.
I saw it. Freddie wanted to hit, but after the WP he was IBB anyway. Same result.
I saw that. That’s why the catcher missed it. Great win!! A sigh of relief. I have game 5 tickets n there will be a game 5. Yamamoto was great! I will admit last year I didn’t really c the fuss. He has earned his money this year. We will need the bullpen moving forward. Please no Sheehan but if u must let him start an inning with a lead.
I’ve said it before here, on my site and on other sites. Starting pitching is the name of the game. You can win championships with great Starting pitching. The Dodgers certainly have that
Dominant Starting pitching, and a few timely hits or home runs.
Yama is everything we’d hoped he would be when the Dodgers signed him last year. Love it!
Right with you Jeff on your reasons why RVS should be jettisoned after this season.
Max Muncy has more postseason homers, 15 now, than any other Dodger. Seager and JT had 13. Snider stands alone with 11 homers in the World Series. He hit 4 in a series twice.
Smith could be second most for catcher if he gets 2 more
I was drinking Maximus IPA last night. You’re welcome.
Should have been saki!
Some thoughts on last night’s game:
Quite a pitcher’s duel for 6 innings between Yamamoto and Gausman.
The offensive game plan coming in against Gausman wasn’t a good one, IMO. It was obvious the Dodgers were trying to get him up in the zone. We seemed to take too many fastballs down the can early and than swing at splitters in the dirt. Why not jump on those early center cut fastballs even if they are in the bottom 1/2 of the strike zone?
Finally, after retiring 17 straight, Freeman, Smith and Muncy decided to swing the bat earlier and that ran Gausman out of the game.
And Yamamoto was spectacular. Once again, how do you avoid a poor bullpen? Don’t pitch em.
Adrian Johnson, the HPU took a lot of questioning from both sides on pitch calls that were actually correct.
While Pages has drawn the wrath of fans here for being an out, including me, Teoscar has been miserable. In the last 4 playoff games, he’s 1 for 15 with 9 K’s.
It appears that the Official Scorer changed Freddie’s misplayed pop-up to an error. How that was ever ruled a hit is mind boggling. That’s an error in Little League.
Nice to see Col Sanders with a good seat at the game.
Pages was almost was double off at second on another mental lapse. I sometimes get the impression he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I still don’t understand why Gimenez didn’t throw home on Will’s roundball with the bases loaded in the 8th, allowing Ohtani to score. The infield was playing “in” which means they are prepared to go 6-2-3 on that grounder. Instead Gimenez threw some 40 foot underhand toss to IKF, who couldn’t get a hustling Smith at 1st. Weird choice. If they had plans to turn the DP in the middle I expect the infield to be playing “half-way” and not “in”. “in” makes for a very awkward turn.
Apparently Vlad Jr. doesn’t wear a cup when he plays 1st base.
I’m not fond of Scherzer and I hope we don’t start out by taking center cut strike one and get behind in counts. He pitched well against the Mariners his last outing and I don’t want to see that. I still hated he didn’t answer the bell for the Dodgers years back in an important playoff game, I think claiming “dead arm”.
Boy FOX doesn’t miss an opportunity to milk the last second out of running ads between innings. They have it timed perfectly so the ads start a nano second after the final pitch of an inning, to the first pitch of the next. Even with the 2:30 time between innings, they get back to the action exactly when the first pitch is delivered.
This is why I usually watch the game recorded and skip the ads. But I detest Smolz so much, I’m listening to the Dodger’s radio broadcast in real time on Sirius radio.
Totally agree with you on Dead Arm Scherzer. Especially afterward when he claimed the Dodgers didn’t pitch him enough.
Yamamoto was awesome and the cherry on the beautiful game was hitting Springer the cheater. Loved it.
Always look forward to your commentary on the games, Phil.
A couple of comments on my part. Not sure why so many people are furious with Scherzer for not taking the ball in the playoffs when he was here. I’ve never seen a great competitor than he is so if he decided to opt out, that tells me he knew the results were going to be bad. To me, that was a case of his putting the team first instead of his ego and I applaud him for it.
I’m not the biggest Smoltz fan and yes he can’t keep quiet, but I would rather have him in the booth than a lot of other folks I can think of. Jessica Mendoza and Rick Monday are two that come to mind, and I know that many out there are Monday fans. Just goes to show ya that we all have our favorites and rejects.
And while I’m on the subject of commentary, Fox or TBS need to give Mr. Kershaw whatever he wants to become part of their playoff broadcasts starting next year. The team of ARod, Big Papi and Jeter leaves me totally cold and the only guy on the TBS broadcasts that I think adds anything is Pedro Martinez. Surely, someone can find room for CK, and while they’re at it they can also add Votto.
I was thinking the same Jeff.
I’ve never had an at bat in MLB but based on a stay I had in a Holiday Inn Express and the knowledge obtained there, a hitter that swings at low-in-the-zone fastballs will start getting sinkers that look like low-in-the-zone fastballs.
I agree on Kershaw in the booth. I do not know how much he wants to be away from family during the season, but the playoffs could work for him. I do think he could be a Nomar type commentator for Texas limiting his number of appearances. And, I guess that Texas would love him.
I also think Joey Votto would be great in the booth; studio or color.
I concede I am in the minority here. I like John Smoltz with Joe Davis. Does he ramble too much? Yes. But the era of the Jerry Doggett’s is long gone. All color commentators talk too much. I do not like Jessica Mendoza or Eddie Pérez at all. I do like Ron Darling on TBS and David Cone on ESPN.
As far as Studio analysts, I too like Pedro, but I also like Jimmy Rollins. I prefer the TBS studio analysts as they actually break things down rather than clown around as the Fox Trio do. I will always love Papi for how he took my son under his wing, but his clownish antics are not entertaining for me. I could do without ARod, but I do like Derek Jeter.
I like Jimmy Rollins too. My favorite in season commentators are Ron Darling with Gary Cohen with the Mets, Yankee’s Michael Kay with David Cone (not Paul O’Neill), Aaron Goldsmith with Ryan Roland-Smith with the Mariners, Kevin Brown with Ben McDonald who is excellent, with the Orioles, Boog Sciambi alongside Jim Deshaies for the Cubs, and wash my mouth out with soap, Krukow and Kuiper with the Giants.
Catchers seem to be great analysts (Joe Girardi is great) and pitchers the worst for me as they talk too much and second guess pitchers and location, pre and post pitch WAY TOO much.(except Ben McDonald) They seem to think that every pitch that’s hit was a mistake giving the hitters little credit.
Jeter is the best of the 3 Musketeers but I think he may be kind of a dick.
Forgot to mention Ron Darling in my first comment. One of my very favorites.
Darling, Pedro, and Jeter are good.
Good comments, STB. As I looked for a Sirius radio station for last night’s game, the first ESPN station had Jess Mendoza and Eddie Perez doing commentary. Neither is a favorite of mine. I found the Dodger broadcast that had Rick Monday. I chose him over Jessica Mendoza.
Great idea to get CK in the booth. He would be excellent. Your idea gets my vote.
Interesting takes on this thread.
At the time I thought Scherzer didn’t pitch because he didn’t want to take a chance on hurting himself. That opinion hasn’t changed. Dead arm. That’s your excuse? Who hasn’t been dead tired but still got up and gone to work. In pain? Take a pill. You’re injured? I want to hear it from the team doctors. Otherwise, suit up
Announcers. If they bother me, as many do, I mute the tv. I know what I’m looking at and I know what I’m looking for. I will often unmute to listen to their explanations during replays and it’s interesting how often those explanations have me asking “how long did you play this game?”. I see mistakes made by defenders that go unnoticed, I see obvious pitch to pitch mistakes that go unnoticed. (Then of course there is Smoltz). I see umpire errors. I see a lot of stuff i believe is worth mentioning. If announcing I would probably come across like Smoltz.
When living in Arizona I heard Darin Sutton for the first time and thought he was very good. He was with Spectrum for a year, ‘22, but I don’t remember hearing him
Anyway, thanks to all for the reads. Back to football.
I hear Joe Davis all year. But this World Series, I have just shut the sound off simply because I have noticed these broadcasts lean towards the Jays. All they talk about is their potent offense. Same offense they had in August, and the Dodgers whipped them 2 of 3 in LA. Allowed just 1 run in two of the games, in the game they lost, the bullpen allowed 3 homers in the last two innings for a 5-4 loss. Two of the bombs were off of Treinen. The game winner was hit off of Vesia.
What a game by Yoshi! An all time classic pitching performance in WS history at a time when the Dodgers needed it badly.
Going back to LA being down 0-2 would have been a deep, deep hole to overcome.
Dodgers offense has to pick it up. Too many quick and easy outs, not enough clutch hitting.
Lets hope Glasnow and then Ohtani will bring their best stuff. Will be neeeded vs a very, very good TOR offense.
Go Dodgers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is no reason for Ohtani to be taking center cut first pitch fastballs. Or swinging at balls in the dirt on strike two
He’s an enigma
I forgot to include this.
Life comes at you fast.