Dodgers Recap: Led by Yamamoto’s Complete Game, Dodgers Sieze Control of the Series!

MILWAUKEE — In case you haven’t heard yet, the Dodgers’ rotation is pretty, pretty, pretty good. One night after Blake Snell dominated the Brewers’ lineup, Yoshinobu Yamamoto said, “I’ll have me some of that, too” and he went out and twirled a gem of his own, pitching a complete game and leading the Dodgers to a 5-1 win over the Brewers in Game 2 of the NLCS. Now, the Boys in Blue come home clearly in the proverbial catbird’s seat. Let’s go over what happened in this one:

Early on, a couple of solo home runs got the game off to a bang. After a scoreless top of the first, the Brewers started things off VERY quickly, when Jackson Chourio hijacked Yamamoto’s first offering of the night, a center-cut heater, and sent it flying into the Dodgers bullpen for an opposite field home run. Then, in the top of the second, the Dodgers struck right back. Teoscar Hernandez connected off Brewers starter Freddy Peralta for a towering home run into the left field seats to tie the score.

Then, with the bases clear, the Dodgers mounted another rally. Kiké Hernández ripped a single into center, which brought up the struggling Andy Pages. Pages, who came into the game with only one hit and a sub-.100 batting average in the postseason, finally got a pitch he could handle. He took a changeup in the zone and went the other way with it, sending the ball into the right field corner and sending Hernandez around the bases to score.

Now leading 2-1, Yamamoto settled in very nicely. Taking advantage of some very aggressive Milwaukee hitters, Yoshi breezed through the middle innings. He gave up a couple more hits along the way, but overall, he bounced back from that first pitch homer famously, getting a lot of early contact in counts and keeping his pitch count very low.

In the top of the sixth, Max Muncy added a crucial insurance run and chased Peralta from the game. He hit a ball in almost the exact same spot as his infamous “GIDP” blast in Monday night’s game, but this time there was no bringing it back for centerfielder Sal Frelich. The game went into the late innings with the Dodgers in control with a 3-1 lead.

The Dodgers tacked on a couple more runs in the seventh and eight on RBI hits from Shohei Ohtani (finally!) and Tommy Edman.

Meanwhile, all the early aggressiveness of the Brewer bats came back to haunt them. Yamamoto just tore through their lineup like a buzzsaw. And this time, Dave Roberts didn’t even want to chance a call to the bullpen. Instead he sent his ace out for the final frame, letting Yoshi finish the game old school.

Yamamoto didn’t disappoint. He worked a quick 1-2-3 inning, striking out his final hitter of the night in what has been just the latest in a string of otherworldly starts from this billion-dollar rotation. Wow.

Now leading the series 2 games to none, the Dodgers head back to Chavez Ravine, looking to punch their ticket to their second straight World Series. It never looked so close.

After an off day on Thursday, the series picks up on Thursday afternoon with a 3:00 start. Tyler Glasnow will look to build off his great start against Philadelphia and give the Dodgers a 3-0 stranglehold on the pennant.

Enjoy your day, Dodgers fans. But come back on Thursday afternoon ready to rock. Let’s not give the Brewers even a hope of sneaking back into this thing.

LFG!!

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