4 Takeaways From the Dodgers’ NLCS Game 2 Win Over the Brewers

One night after Blake Snell went eight innings in a Game 1 win to start the National League Championship Series, his teammate did him one better Tuesday night in Milwaukee.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto followed Snell’s eight scoreless by delivering the first complete game from a Dodgers starter in a postseason outing since Jose Lima in 2004, going the distance in a 5-1 win in Game 2 of the NLCS.

Here are my takeaways:

The last time Yamamoto was on the mound, the Phillies won their only game of the NLDS. They blitzed him for six hits and three runs and chased him after just four innings. 

The last time he was on the mound against the Brewers specifically, he didn’t make it out of the first. That outing, during which he allowed five runs and six baserunners without recording a strikeout, was his worst of the year. But Yamamoto was a Cy Young contender this year for a reason. He has a tendency of bouncing back when a start doesn’t go his way.

And boy, did he. After surrendering a home run on the first pitch of the game, Yamamoto locked in, spending the rest of the night flummoxing the Brewers’ bats. Milwaukee didn’t score again, as he surrendered just three hits and a walk while striking out seven in a complete game. 

The Dodgers’ rotation, which was by far the best in baseball from the start of August through the end of the year once the group got whole and healthy again, has taken its dominance into October, logging a 1.54 ERA as a group. 

The Dodgers have gotten quality starts in seven of their eight games to start the playoffs, and Yamamoto and Snell are now the first Dodgers starters to deliver at least eight innings in back-to-back playoff games since 1988, when Orel Hershiser and Tim Belcher also accomplished the feat in the