Yoshinobu Yamamoto has taken us all in a time machine.
Back to a bygone era, when starting pitchers didn't give the baseball up, especially in big games.
In 2025, pitchers don't do this. They don't pitch complete games. They certainly don't go the distance two games in a row.
Don't tell that to Yamamoto, though. The Los Angeles Dodgers' $325 million Japanese right-hander is currently reprising a role as the best pitcher on the planet.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hasn't had a reason to take the baseball away.
In Game 2 of the NLCS, Yamamoto threw a complete game in a win.
He did the same thing in Game 2 of the World Series.
According to the Fox broadcast, Yamamoto is the first player to put together this kind of playoff complete game combo, including one in the World Series, since Tom Glavine in 1992. And he's the first Dodgers pitcher to win back-to-back playoff complete games since Orel Hershiser in 1988.
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We didn't need a stat like that to tell us it has been a while.
This is the era of specialization, of left-handed relievers to face lefty batters, of sinker-balling relievers to come in with runners on base, of relievers of all shapes and sizes throwing 100 miles per hour with nasty movement.
Starting pitchers are supposed to get hit harder the third time through the order. That's why managers often don't let them get to that point.
But right now with Yamamoto, everything has gone out the window. It doesn't matter what hitters are supposed to do with him the more times they see him, because they aren't doing that. It doesn't matter what the Dodgers have in the bullpen, because they don't need that.
All they need is Yamamoto.
The heater is fast. The splitter is nasty. The curveball is slow, and loopy, and not getting touched.
Yamamoto has ensured some fun. The Blue Jays won Game 1 of the World Series. But behind this gem, and a pair of late home runs by Will Smith and Max Muncy, the Dodgers have knotted things up.
There are more star pitchers coming, especially for the Dodgers. But they might just circle Game 6 on the calendar.
There's a realistic chance that the Dodgers can close it out in that contest, the next one Yamamoto would be lined up to pitch.
This is the franchise of Koufax, of Hershiser, of Drysdale, of Kershaw.
And right now, it's the franchise of Yamamoto. He's doing it as well as any pitcher in Dodgers blue ever has, in a way that felt like a thing of the past, in a beautiful, dominant, refuse-to-give-up-the-baseball kind of way. It doesn't get better than Yamamoto right now.
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