Dodgers Recap: Yamamoto Brilliant, but Dodgers Need Extras to Take Series from Giants

SAN FRANCISCO — Sure, the last ten days hasn’t gone that great. But in the end, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the Los Angeles Dodgers. And riding a brilliant start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers were looking to finish up the first half of the 2025 campaign with a 2-0 shutout win over the rival San Francisco Giants. It didn’t quite work out that way. After Tanner Scott blew yet another save in the bottom of the ninth, they had to rely on game-saving catch from James Outman in the tenth and a series of bloops, duck snorts, and lucky bounces in the eleventh to beat the Giants by a score of 5-2.

They end their first half with two straight wins and a record of 58-39, firmly entrenched in first place in the NL West, with still the best record in the National League. Things could be a whole lot worse, folks.

Let’s rewind the chaos of this Sunday matinee in San Francisco.

Yamamoto Shines Again

The story early on was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who finished his dominant first half with another gem: 7.0 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, and 7 strikeouts. Yamamoto’s fastball was lively, his splitter was filthy, and he kept the Giants completely off-balance all afternoon. The only real damage came in the form of a seventh-inning double by Jung Hoo Lee, but Yamamoto stranded him without issue.

Yamamoto finishes the first half with a 2.59 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 104.1 innings. He looks like a frontline ace—and he’s earned that All-Star nod.

Freeman and Rojas Provide the Early Offense

The Dodgers scratched out their first run in the 4th, when Freddie Freeman lined a double down the right field line to score Shohei Ohtani, who had reached via walk. In the 5th, Miguel Rojas (yes, Miguel Rojas) gave Yamamoto some breathing room with a solo shot to left—his 5th home run of the season.

That made it 2–0 Dodgers, and it looked like that would be enough.

Then Came the Ninth

But as has often been the case in 2025, no Dodgers lead is safe until the final out.

Manager Dave Roberts turned to Tanner Scott to close it out. After a flyout from Willy Adames, Matt Chapman singled, and then Luis Matos, pinch-hitting for Mike Yastrzemski, launched a two-run bomb to tie the game. For Scott, it was his seventh blown save of the year, and the Dodgers bullpen ERA in the ninth inning crept a little higher.

Outman Saves the Tenth

Credit where it’s due: James Outman—called into the game as a defensive replacement—earned his keep in the bottom of the tenth. With runners on and one out, Rafael Devers hit a screaming liner toward the right-centerfield fence, and Outman chased it down with a full-speed over-the-shoulder grab that was worthy of the Say-Hey Kid. It was good enough to preserve the 2–2 tie.

Those are the kinds of plays that get lost in the box score but win you ballgames.

Chaos in the Eleventh

What followed in the 11th inning was pure baseball bedlam.

With Outman starting at second base (the ghost runner), the Giants chose to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani. After Mookie Betts and Will Smith failed to bring a run home, up came Freeman, who delivered once again—a soft bloop single to no-man’s land in center plated Outman to give the Dodgers a 3–2 lead.

That opened the floodgates.

• Teoscar Hernández chopped a slow grounder past first that Wilmer Flores couldn’t convert for another RBI single.
• Andy Pages blooped another one into right, scoring Freeman. Neither the Freeman hit (70 mph exit velo) nor this one (64 mph) would get arrested for speeding on the 405, but they looked glorious in the score book
• The Dodgers scored three in the inning on four hits, none of them particularly loud, but all of them perfectly placed.

Call it luck, call it karma, call it good situational hitting—whatever it was, it worked.

Casparius Closes It

After Jack Dreyer got two big outs in the 10th, Ben Casparius came on for the 11th and made quick work of the Giants to seal it. A strikeout, a pop-out, and a flyout later, the Dodgers were walking off the field with a win—and a hard-earned series victory.

For Casparius, it was his 7th win of the season, and perhaps his most efficient outing to date.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. But it counts just the same. The Dodgers won their final two games before the All-Star break, they’re still in first place, and they’re getting healthier.

Yamamoto looks like the ace they paid for. Freeman is heating up. Ohtani is getting on base constantly. And with James Outman making game-saving plays again, maybe there’s more depth to this team than we thought.

The bullpen? Still a work in progress. But the Dodgers go into the break with a little momentum, and that’s more than a lot of other contenders can say.

Enjoy your All-Star Break, Dodgers fans. We’ll be back at it with complete coverage of the second half of the season, which begins on Friday night at Chavez Ravine as the Boys in Blue look to exact some revenge against the Milwaukee Brewers. No pitching match-up as of yet, but we do know the season will resume at 7:10 PDT. See you at Dodger Stadium!

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