
All the ideas about how to stop up the Dodgers’ leaky bullpen missed one thing: Maybe the starters can just do all the work.
A night after lefty Blake Snell threw eight one-hit innings to win Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto authored a one-run, three-hit complete game to give his team a 5–1 win in Game 2 and bring them two wins from a chance to defend their 2024 title. It was the Dodgers’ first complete game this season, Yamamoto’s first in the majors and the nation of Japan’s first in the MLB postseason. He retired the final 14 hitters he faced.