Griffin Floyd
The Los Angeles Dodgers took a commanding 2-0 lead in their National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday, Oct. 14, winning 5-1 behind a complete game from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and home runs from Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy.
Now, even though some of their stars aren’t playing their best baseball, the Dodgers will return to Chavez Ravine for a three game homestand that could help them put the series out of reach for a hapless Brewers offense.
Here are the winners and losers from Game 2.
Winner: Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Yoshinobu Yamamoto practiced a lost art on Tuesday night, pitching a full nine innings for a complete game. Of the 2,429 games played this season — 4,858 opportunities for a pitcher to go nine innings — just 29 did so. What’s more, Yamamoto’s complete game was the first in a postseason game since 2017.
The Dodgers right-hander threw 111 pitches, allowing just three hits and one walk to seven strikeouts. That took the onus off of the Los Angeles bullpen, the only real weakness of their $350 million roster. Yamamoto’s one blooper came on the first pitch of the game, a four-seam fastball that Brewers star Jackson Chourio laced to the opposite field for a home run. After that, Yamamoto pitched lights out. The only baserunners he allowed never made it past first, giving the Brewers no chance of mounting a comeback.
Winner: Teoscar Hernández
Teoscar Hernández made up for his baserunning error in Game 1, hitting a second inning home run that tied the game 1-1. He showed plenty of hustle in the sixth inning, singling on a comebacker to Brewers pitcher Abner Uribe. Hernández forced a throwing error on the play, allowing him to advance to second base, although a Tommy Edman strikeout stranded him there.
In the eighth inning Hernández notched a productive out, grounding out to move Will Smith and Max Muncy to third and second, respectively, helping Los Angeles push the lead to 5-1. The veteran right fielder is now slashing .294/.333/.676 with four home runs and 10 RBI through eight games this postseason.
Loser: Shohei Ohtani
There’s no doubt about it now. All-world pitcher/designated hitter and $700 million man Shohei Ohtani is in the midst of a massive slump to begin the postseason. Although he hit two home runs in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against an overmatched Cincinnati Reds squad, Ohtani’s postseason slash line sits at a hideous .147/.275/.324. Ohtani went 1-for-5 with an RBI on Tuesday night, striking out three times.
To his credit, opposing teams don’t want to give Ohtani anything to hit. He’s walked six times in eight postseason games, with four of those free passes intentional. However, when the pitchers he faces do try to challenge Ohtani, they’re winning far more than they’re losing.
Loser: Brewers Offense
Milwaukee has now scored just two runs through 18 innings against the Dodgers. Only one of those runs has come against a starting pitcher: they rang up overworked reliever Roki Sasaki for one run in the ninth inning of Game 1, but the Brewers haven’t been able to chase the Dodgers’ starters from the game and challenge their shaky bullpen.
The Brewers managed just one run in Game 2, a leadoff home run from Jackson Chourio. They notched just two hits the rest of the way, both singles, and never put a runner into scoring position.
Milwaukee only struck out seven times, putting 24 balls in play, but only six of those had an exit velocity of more than 100 miles per hour. Yoshinobu Yamamoto managed to force weak contact, and the Brewers couldn’t even grind out at-bats to chase him from the game early.
