The Athletic has live coverage of Dodgers vs. Blue Jays in Game 6 of the 2025 World Series.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ season and the last gasp of hope for cementing a dynasty now rests in the hands of Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The assignment of saving a team billed as a juggernaut but now facing the end of its season is the kind that forges legacies and can break wills, the kind of pressure that buries you if you let it. It should not be all up to Yamamoto, though a combustible bullpen and dormant lineup have made it so.
The Dodgers can still believe in Game 6 of the World Series, because they have Yamamoto.
“The right guy,” outfielder Kiké Hernández said, “at the right time.”
Rarely has a pitcher questioned for his lack of height stood as tall as Yamamoto has this October, when the 5-foot-10 starter became the first Dodgers pitcher since Orel Hershiser in 1988 to throw consecutive complete games in the postseason.
But his track record of clutch moments extends far beyond this fall. Yamamoto was a postseason ace in Japan first, and that ability needed no translation in the big leagues.
“He’s pitched in huge ballgames in Japan,” manager Dave Roberts said recently. “He’s pitched in the WBC. Players that have the weight of a country on their shoulders – that’s pressure.”
Kiké Hernández said of Yamamoto: ‘You’re not supposed to keep getting better, and he’s finding a way to do it.’ (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
Concerns last year about handing Yamamoto the richest contract ever – 12 years, $325 million – to a pitcher who had never pitched in Major League Baseball were quieted well before he took the baseball in Game 2 this series and delivered the first complete game in the World Series in a decade.
On Friday, Yamamoto will start against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre, with the Dodgers needing a victory to force a decisive Game 7.
As the stakes have increased, Yamamoto has elevated along with them.
“To be honest, I don’t know why,” the pitcher said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda.
Yamamoto is an artist and a chameleon at once, with a diverse arsenal and the ability to put any pitch in whatever quadrant he desires. He is a beloved teammate whose willingness to volunteer himself to pitch late into the night of an 18-inning Game 3 only reaffirmed their belief in him.
The stage is not new to Yamamoto, even if the audience has changed. Before spurning several clubs, including the Blue Jays, to sign his record pact with the Dodgers, Yamamoto spent his early 20s establishing his dominance throughout his native Japan.
The Sawamura Award represents Nippon Professional Baseball’s equivalent of the Cy Young – Yamamoto won it three times. When no pitcher was deemed worthy in Japan in 2024, and no Sawamura Award winner was selected, Yamamoto retained the title while spending his rookie season with the Dodgers and winning the World Series. That marked Yamamoto’s second championship alongside a 2022 Japan Series title he claimed with the Orix Buffaloes.
Yamamoto also played a role in helping Samurai Japan win the World Baseball Classic in 2023, on a roster that included now-Dodgers teammates Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki.
Yamamoto has passed every test. His first season with the Dodgers was marred by shoulder trouble that cost him several months and began with a disastrous debut in South Korea. Against the San Diego Padres in the second game of the season, Yamamoto allowed six runs in one inning. Still, his 2024 season ended with a 3.00 ERA over 90 regular-season innings and a World Series championship, as he was the winning pitcher with 6 1/3 strong innings in Game 2 against the New York Yankees.
Yamamoto’s sophomore campaign has been a wire-to-wire display of dominance. He was the lone Dodger to not miss a start, posting 30 times with a 2.49 ERA while allowing the lowest batting average to opponents (.182) of any pitcher in baseball. He will log Cy Young votes for what he did during the regular season.
Now, in October, he has solidified his status as a postseason folk hero around Los Angeles.
“To have that contract given to you, and then just to live up to it so fast, and just be counted on by us every five days, it’s special,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “It takes a special person to do something like that.”
“You’re not supposed to keep getting better after he did that in Japan, and he did what he did last year,” added Hernández. “You’re not supposed to keep getting better, and he’s finding a way to do it.”
Yamamoto’s quirks made him stand out beyond his price tag. He arrived for his first spring training last February, accompanied by his own guru, Osamu Yada (known as “Yada Sensei”), and a bag filled with soccer balls and javelins. The training veers from the orthodox but has emphasized Yamamoto’s preternatural gifts and body control. His stature is small – the Dodgers list him at 176 pounds – but no one can control their movements better. Fellow pitcher Clayton Kershaw has called Yamamoto’s mechanics pristine.
Teammates love his eccentricities, and they were quick to embrace him. It helps that, rather than take his money and his training regimen and forcing himself into a cocoon, Yamamoto opened himself up to the group of superstars surrounding him.
When Blake Snell arrived this past winter, something drew him to Yamamoto. The two-time Cy Young winner asked to get breakfast before the day’s workout early in February. A friendship blossomed.
“He had good energy, was easy to love and cheer for and root for,” Snell said this month.
The two bonded over pitching and fashion, with Yamamoto arriving each day with an ever more luxurious designer bag.
Others in the clubhouse began having fun with different fashion choices: Sonoda has begun sporting a pair of lucky underwear on the days Yamamoto starts. It’s hard to argue with the results.
Yamamoto has become a force. His array of pitches is so deep, and his pinpoint command so precise, that just about every at-bat against him looks different. As he battled trouble in the first inning of Game 2, with runners at first and third and nobody out, Yamamoto challenged Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with four straight splitters.
He struck out Guerrero swinging en route to getting out of the jam without surrendering a run. As Yamamoto turned the line over, his curveball became the primary weapon.
“He gives them different looks, even though it’s the same guy,” pitching coach Mark Prior said.
Yamamoto toyed with its velocity and movement, as if to have different curveballs to help set opposing hitters up. His arsenal is power. His skill is craft.
“My favorite player,” said reliever Justin Wrobleski. “He just does things not a lot of people can do.”
His teammates’ admiration grew during a game in which Yamamoto didn’t even pitch in. When the marathon Game 3 rolled into the 10th inning and the Dodgers began running out of pitchers, Yamamoto approached Prior and, through interpreter Will Ireton, communicated that he could pitch if needed.
That message remained on the back burner as relievers Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein, the last two additions to the roster, took their turns putting up zeroes in extra innings. The message did not appear to get to Roberts, who told the Fox broadcast he was likely to go to a position player next. Yamamoto made eye contact with Prior and reiterated that he could be ready.
Prior relented. As Yamamoto retreated to the clubhouse to change into his spikes and begin his routine, he walked past Sasaki. The rookie phenom-turned-closer had pitched parts of the eighth and ninth, but never looked quite as gobsmacked as he was when he put together what Yamamoto was attempting to do.
Japan’s NHK camera caught Yoshinobu Yamamoto talking with Dave Roberts and starting to warm up
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“These guys are built different,” infielder Miguel Rojas said. “They’ve done it before. I think Yamamoto has like four or five championships already, counting Japan. He knows how to do it and what to do to get it done.”
The Dodgers have been cautious with how Yamamoto has been used in two big-league seasons. He’s never pitched on fewer than five days’ rest. On two days’ rest after throwing a 105-pitch complete game in Game 2, as Monday neared midnight, Yamamoto began throwing. First, softly. At one point, someone asked him to let one rip. It was a fastball, 97 mph, right where the bullpen catcher put his mitt.
“It epitomizes Yoshi,” Freeman said.
Had Klein, who delivered 72 pitches in relief over four scoreless innings, not gotten out of the 18th, Yamamoto would’ve entered. Had Freeman not ended it in the bottom half of the inning, Yamamoto would’ve had to pitch.
Instead, when Freeman launched a walk-off homer to center field, a crowd erupted around Yamamoto. Sonoda and bullpen catchers Francisco Herrera and Hamlet Marte rushed to embrace him in the bullpen in pure elation. Ohtani and Sasaki mobbed home plate as part of the celebration, then veered off into the outfield, where they leaped with relief with Yamamoto.
He was set to be their savior. That will have to wait for Game 6.
“That’s probably the only thing in my mind right now,” Yamamoto said.
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