LOS ANGELES — For the second night in a row, the World Series came down to a bases-loaded, last at-bat situation for the trailing team. This time there were no late-inning heroics.
Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia induced New York Yankees pinch hitter Jose Trevino to fly out to center field to preserve a 4-2 win Saturday night, the second in a row for the Dodgers, who lead 2-0 in the best-of-seven series with Game 3 on Monday in New York.
Not unlike Yankees reliever Nestor Cortes, who gave up a walk-off grand slam to Freddie Freeman in Game 1, Vesia was coming off an injury that forced him to miss the NLCS. But he shook off the rust with an inning of work on Friday and then was called upon to relieve righty Blake Treinen, who loaded the bases on two singles and a hit-by-pitch.
Like Freeman, Trevino went first-pitch hunting, just getting under a ball that landed 345 feet away and into center fielder Tommy Edman’s glove.
The 52,725 in attendance at Dodger Stadium let out a collective sigh of relief — as did the guy on the mound.
“It all happened pretty fast,” Vesia said afterward. “With bases loaded and two outs for me, starting the hitter 1-0 is all the advantage to the hitter, so I wanted to attack to my strengths and try to execute a pitch.”
The inner-half, four-seam fastball did the trick, highlighting a night of great pitching for the usually offense-driven Dodgers, who might have lost star designated hitter Shohei Ohtani to a shoulder injury.
Coming into the game, the Dodgers had scored at least six runs in six of their past seven postseason games, and it appeared they were on their way to making it seven out of eight after Edman, Teoscar Hernandez and Freeman homered in the second and third innings, respectively. But the Dodgers would not score again. They wouldn’t need to, thanks to starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was spectacular, tossing his best game since beating the Yankees in early June.
“That was an incredible start for Yamamoto,” Treinen said. “It’s going to go up there as probably one of the best starts in this postseason for sure.”
Yamamoto went 6⅓ innings, giving up only one hit — a solo home run to Juan Soto — while walking two and striking out four, including Aaron Judge twice. His five-pitch mix was as good as it has been in a while, considering the right-hander was working his way back from an arm injury throughout August and into September. Some of his outings, even in the postseason, looked more like spring appearances. He went three innings in Game 1 of the NLDS, then five in Game 5 of that series, then back down to 4⅓ innings in Game 4 of the NLCS. He hadn’t thrown more than 73 pitches since late September. That changed in Game 2 of the World Series when he threw 86 stress-free pitches with plenty of movement.
“By the time I came off the IL, I was already as good as — pretty much close to where I was before,” Yamamoto said through a team interpreter. “Then after that, as I started pitching in a game, then I think I got better.”
The Yankees were off-balance all night. Yamamoto threw 42 fastballs, 21 curves, 11 splitters, eight sliders and four cutters. Fifty-four of his 86 went for strikes.
“He’s really good,” Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “He’s electric. His split seems like it goes three different ways. He throws strikes. He keeps his composure. I can see why he’s had so much success in Japan and so much success here this year.”
Manager Aaron Boone added: “It was hard to be patient with him when he was on the attack and getting ahead.”
Yamamoto was a huge offseason signing for the Dodgers, inking a 12-year, $325 million contract, but the Rookie of the Year favorite to begin the season took a little time to find his stride. His ERA would eventually fall under 3.00, in June, just after shutting out the Yankees over seven innings and just before he would go on the injured list because of a rotator-cuff issue. When he came back in September, the Dodgers took things slow. They’re benefitting from it now.
“There wasn’t much stress in the game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Yeah, he hasn’t been in the seventh inning since that Yankee game [in June]. I felt we had a good building-block foundation.”
Yamamoto came off the mound to a standing ovation in the seventh and now is in line to pitch Game 6, if necessary, on an extra day of rest. The performance came amid a cloud of uncertainty for the Dodgers as it relates to their best player. Ohtani will have an MRI on Sunday to determine the severity of his shoulder injury — though the Dodgers are confident they can win even if he has to miss time.
“Oh, yeah, a thousand percent,” Teoscar Hernandez said. “We were battling throughout the year with a lot of injuries. First was the starting pitcher and then Mookie and then Freddie. And hopefully Ohtani is not the case.”
Between Jack Flaherty’s performance in Game 1 and Yamamoto’s in Game 2, Hernandez might be right about his team’s chances if Ohtani can’t play. They might lose some offense, but all of a sudden the Dodgers have more starting pitching than anyone realized. For most of the postseason, their storyline on the mound has revolved around their bullpen. That might be changing at the most important time of the playoffs.
“The last two nights everybody said maybe we don’t have the starting arms to make a run in the World Series, [but] what Jack did yesterday and Yamamoto in his first World series game, that’s really impressive,” Treinen said.
