BALTIMORE — One out away from history, the Los Angeles Dodgers found a new low. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was putting the finishing touches on a historic masterpiece, getting to two outs in the ninth inning without allowing a hit before Jackson Holliday lofted a cutter that sneaked over the right-field fence.
Then the Dodgers hit rock bottom, again, where the losses are cruel and the collapses are mind-boggling. Yamamoto would record the final out by a Dodgers pitcher all night as the Baltimore Orioles sprung a late two-out rally against relievers Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott, who combined to cough up the team’s fifth loss in a row. A 4-3 loss ended on Emmanuel Rivera’s walk-off single, extinguishing whatever momentum the sliding defending champions hoped to muster.
From a no-hitter to no win at all in a matter of minutes.
“Obviously, it’s really hard to swallow,” Yamamoto said after the game through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda.
NO-HITTER NO MORE
Jackson Holliday homers with two outs in the 9th to end Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s no-hitter 🤯 pic.twitter.com/P0UPJYYYjV
— MLB (@MLB) September 7, 2025
Just when the Dodgers can’t seem to slide any further, they find a way to best themselves.
Treinen failed to put away Jeremiah Jackson, leaving a full-count sinker the outfielder pounded for a two-out double to start the meltdown. Then Treinen got Gunnar Henderson into a 1-2 count before hitting him in the foot with a sweeper. Consecutive walks and a wild pitch forced manager Dave Roberts to hand the ball to struggling closer Scott, who left a fastball over the plate that Rivera smacked into center field to bring home the tying and winning runs.
It was the most baffling calamity yet during a streak that has come solely against teams in last place and as the team has lost seven of its last eight against teams with losing records.
“It’s hard to recount a game like this,” Roberts said. “We just couldn’t get that last out.”
“I have to get one flipping out, and I didn’t do it,” Treinen said.
PLAY ORIOLES MAGIC RIGHT NOW pic.twitter.com/xpdsPtLztG
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) September 7, 2025
Yamamoto touched history before he ever even threw a pitch in the major leagues. The weight of Major League Baseball’s richest contract ever for a pitcher has clung to his slight frame like an anchor ever since, even as the man thrice named Japan’s best pitcher displayed his dominance for a team that would win a World Series in his first season there.
History called again Saturday night. Yamamoto, the $325 million man, allowed no hits through 26 outs against the Orioles before Holliday hit Yamamoto’s 112th pitch into the seats.
Rain delayed Yamamoto’s first pitch. He loosened up as a sold-out Oriole Park at Camden Yards crowd honored the 30th anniversary of Cal Ripken Jr.’s setting the all-time mark for consecutive games played before attempting to etch history of his own.
Yamamoto threw two no-hitters while dominating the sport in his native Japan. In his 45th start in the major leagues, he sought to become just the third Japanese-born pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter. The two before him, Hideo Nomo and Hisashi Iwakuma, also completed their no-hitters against the Orioles.
“You can see why the Dodgers gave him the contract they gave him after never pitching in Major League Baseball,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “He was electric tonight.”
There have been just 24 no-hitters in Dodgers franchise history, and none since Walker Buehler started a combined effort in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2018. Yamamoto’s achievement would have extended a streak of at least one no-hitter thrown in every MLB season since 2005.
Yamamoto delivered while trying something new. Ben Rortvedt has been on the active roster for all of three days and in the organization for a little more than a month when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wrote his name in the lineup for a start Saturday. Starting catcher Will Smith sat on the bench, unavailable because of a badly bruised right hand that precipitated Rortvedt’s call-up. Backup catcher Dalton Rushing spent Saturday morning at a doctor’s office, diagnosed with a bone bruise in his right shin after fouling a ball off his leg in Friday night’s Dodgers loss. That left Rortvedt to catch Yamamoto for the first time, sitting alongside the right-hander as they tried for history.
“I think I was just so focused on trying to be on the same page with him that I kind of got lost in it,” said Rortvedt, who didn’t realize what Yamamoto was doing until the fifth.
Yamamoto, who typically delegates to his catchers, appeared to be wearing a PitchCom device on his belt to call some of his own pitches.
“We definitely bounced things back and forth when he felt something,” Rortvedt said. “I wanted him to have conviction with his pitches, and he definitely had that tonight.”
Saturday saw Yamamoto at his dominant best. His fastball velocity was up more than a mile per hour from his season norms. His splitter was lethal, inducing swings-and-misses at will. His curveball slowed hitters down. His cutter generated soft contact.
Only a brief bout of wildness kept him from perfection through the early part of the bid, as he issued consecutive walks to start the third inning. Neither runner scored, as Yamamoto got Coby Mayo to wave at a curveball and induced an inning-ending double play one pitch later to emerge unscathed.
A quick eighth gave Yamamoto leeway to pitch the ninth, entering the final frame at 104 pitches and a chance at a galvanizing moment. Yamamoto quickly struck out Alex Jackson on a splitter and got Mayo to fly out right before Holliday stepped up to the plate. Yamamoto and Rortvedt discussed the early part of their pitch sequence to Holliday, peppering him on the outer half of the plate with fastballs to set up something in. Yamamoto went to his belt and called for a cutter inside. Holliday got enough of it.
“I thought it was a good pitch,” Rortvedt said. “He had conviction in it, and I think he hit his spot, too. He didn’t get all of it, but he got enough to poke it out.”
“The location wasn’t bad,” Yamamoto said. “His swing, he just put a good swing on it.”
So went the no-hitter.
“That’s all that was on my mind, honestly,” Holliday said. “Going into the eighth inning, that’s what I was thinking about, ‘Oh, man, it’s going to come down to me.’ So I was definitely thinking about it and kind of nervous because it’s kind of a big thing. It was fun being able to break it up.”
Yamamoto’s efforts still should have powered a win, exiting with a 3-1 lead and one out left to get.
A Dodgers offense that slumped enough for Roberts to take the rare step of addressing the team as a collective Saturday afternoon managed to scratch across three runs. It wasn’t enough, not with how things have gone for the Dodgers as of late.
“We gotta be able to get one out,” Roberts said. “We just got to do it.”
That fueled Roberts’ thinking as he saw his most trusted reliever lose command of the strike zone in a disastrous ninth. He got Scott up to warm up for the left-handed-hitting Colton Cowser but left his faith in Treinen until the reliever gave him no choice. The latest spin on the bullpen roulette wheel landed on Scott, who a night earlier surrendered a walk-off home run to Orioles rookie Samuel Basallo. Scott’s fastball was shin-high to Rivera but caught too much plate. Rivera sent Jorge Mateo scurrying home for the winning run, and a scene no one anticipated, not even 20 minutes earlier.
That’s how a night that should have ended in a celebration and a toast instead ended in another quiet clubhouse and a shell-shocked group.
“There’s really no words,” Treinen said. “You’re paid to be a professional and at least throw strikes, and I didn’t do that. Cost one of the better outings I’ve ever seen in my career with Yama. He deserves better than that.”
(Photo of Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Jess Rapfogel / Getty Images)