TORONTO — He emerged from the dugout as if transported from a bygone era, when starting pitchers doubled as closers: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in the ninth inning, of the World Series. Before last night’s 5-1 victory by the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Toronto Blue Jays, a decade had passed since a pitcher finished what he started on this stage.
Within the constellation of Dodgers starters, Yamamoto hovers beneath the radar. He does not possess the stateside resume of teammate Blake Snell. He does not live beneath the glow of worldwide fame like Shohei Ohtani. He lacks the otherworldly physicality of the 6-foot-8 Tyler Glasnow. But he may be the best pitcher of the bunch, as he demonstrated at Rogers Centre on Saturday, disarming the Blue Jays and drawing the World Series even as one victory apiece.
In scattering four hits and striking out eight, Yamamoto logged the first Fall Classic complete game since Johnny Cueto’s Game 2 gem for the Kansas City Royals in 2015. Building off a masterful NLCS performance, Yamamoto became the first pitcher to log consecutive postseason complete games since Arizona Diamondbacks ace Curt Schilling in 2001, and the first Dodger to do it since Orel Hershiser in 1988.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman matched Yamamoto until the seventh inning. A pair of seventh-inning solo home runs by Dodgers catcher Will Smith and third baseman Max Muncy felled Gausman. In the eighth, the Dodgers squeezed two more out of Toronto’s bullpen to create a cushion for Yamamoto.
Game 1 erased the perception of inevitability surrounding the Dodgers. The defending champions had given up four runs in a four-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Blue Jays hung 11 on them in eight innings. Toronto taxed the two-time Cy Young award winner Snell, expelled him from the game in the sixth and feasted on his underwhelming replacements. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts cannot manage with the confidence and verve in handling his pitching staff last October; a rickety bullpen can make a skipper look skittish.
Across the diamond, Blue Jays manager John Schneider found himself hosting members of the franchise’s royal family. Cito Gaston, the manager of the championship squads in 1992 and 1993, threw out the first pitch on Friday. To top that, the team brought in Joe Carter, the slugger who launched the walkoff homer to win it all in 1993.
“Obviously,” Schneider said, “the most recognized swing in the history of our franchise.”
No Blue Jay has usurped Carter in that category this October. But they are adding their names into franchise lore: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s grand slam against the Yankees; George Springer’s pennant-winning dinger last round; And Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam to turn Game 1 into a rout. The mood was high in the hours before the game. Schneider, a member of the Blue Jays organization since being drafted as a catcher out of the University of Delaware in 2002, chuckled when asked if he ever daydreamed about his own place in Toronto history.
“No,” he said. “I’m thinking about Yamamoto and the Dodgers.”
For the second game in a row, on Saturday the Dodgers struck first. Freddie Freeman won an eight-pitch tussle with Gausman by flicking a two-out double into the right-field corner. Smith brought Freeman home with a single up the middle.
But for the second game in a row, the Blue Jays answered. Toronto subjected Yamamoto to heavy traffic and high stress from the outset. Yamamoto needed 23 pitches to complete a scoreless first inning. He worked around an error by Freeman in the second. In the third, he smoked Springer with a 96.4 mph fastball, surrendered a screaming single off the left-field wall to Guerrero and permitted the game-tying run to score on a sacrifice fly by catcher Alejandro Kirk.
The middle frames offered dueling canvasses for the starting pitchers. At 27, Yamamoto is both one of the most decorated pitchers in the history of Nippon Professional Baseball — a three-time Pacific League MVP and three-time winner of the equivalent of the Cy Young award — and also the signee of a 13-year, $325 million contract, the richest ever for a pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball. Gausman, of course, is far from a slouch. When Gausman signed with Toronto after the 2021 season, his five-year, $110 million deal demonstrated the team’s commitment to spending around its young core.
Gausman settled into a groove after the first. He retired 17 in a row before Smith went deep in the seventh. He jammed them with fastballs and fooled them with splitters. He required only 65 pitches to complete six innings.
In the seventh, though, Gausman wobbled. Smith turned on a full-count fastball at the belt for his first home run of the postseason. Two batters later, Muncy showed the strength to power a 95.9 mph fastball over the left-field fence for an opposite-field shot. The blast was Muncy’s 15th postseason homer as a Dodger and extended his franchise record.
WILL TO THE SECOND DECK! #WORLDSERIES pic.twitter.com/1grYy67gVZ
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 26, 2025
By then, Yamamoto was rolling. He bested the Blue Jays inside the strike zone. The at-bats were brief and uneventful, the opposite of the approach that carried Toronto to this stage and felled Snell in Game 1. Yamamoto kept them guessing at fastballs registered in the upper 90s, sliders in the 80s and curveballs dipping into the 70s.
Yamamoto finished the seventh at 79 pitches. When he returned for the eighth, the Dodgers led by four. The lineup manufactured two more runs against Blue Jays relievers Louis Varland and Jeff Hoffman. Outfielder Andy Pages scored on a wild pitch by Hoffman. Smith sprinted down the line to beat out a double play that permitted Ohtani to come home.
Yamamoto demonstrated his appreciation by striking out the side in the eighth. He flipped a curveball past shortstop Andres Giménez. Springer could not touch an elevated fastball. Yamamoto froze outfielder Nathan Lukes with another fastball to leave the crowd, so boisterous only 24 hours earlier, searching for words.