Alternative knocks for everybody. In some circumstances, alternative knocks, rings the doorbell, shouts into your Ring digital camera, tosses pebbles at your bed room window, then goes out to its convertible within the driveway and begins singing “Thunder Highway.”
Kevin Gausman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto had been each terrific, however all duels finish with one man standing and the opposite getting stabbed. Yamamoto twirled his second straight full sport, giving him the primary streak of playoff full video games in 24 years. Gausman fell off the tightrope within the seventh inning, as dwelling runs by Will Smith and Max Muncy put the visiting staff in entrance for good. The Dodgers’ 5-1 win wasn’t as splashy as Toronto’s dwelling run celebration the night time earlier than, but it surely evens the sequence.
Gausman was all however out of the primary inning. He had two strikes on Freddie Freeman, who’d fouled off a splitter at his ankles, then a middle-middle fastball, then one other heater up at his arms. Gausman went again to the splitter, the pitch that made him well-known, and buried one other.
Simply not deep sufficient. Freeman reached down and drove it to proper area for a double. Two pitches later, Smith adopted a slider out previous the skin fringe of the plate and looped it to middle to plate Freeman.
Within the backside of the inning, George Springer took a fats fastball from Yamamoto and drove it into the left area nook for a double. The very subsequent pitch jammed Nathan Lukes, however his Texas Leaguer dropped between the Dodgers’ defensive shells to place runners on the corners for the meat of the Blue Jays order.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has spent the previous month answering when alternative knocks. In what everybody north of the Rio Grande may see was an enormous second, Guerrero poked and parried one splitter after one other, however sputtered when Yamamoto reached into his Mary Poppins bag of pitches and pulled out a 2-2 curveball. Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho went shortly thereafter, and impulsively the Blue Jays had squandered their likelihood to place their boot proper again the place it had been 20 hours earlier.
Yamamoto and the Dodgers stored giving Toronto possibilities. Ernie Clement continued his streak because the luckiest hitter on the planet when Freeman inexplicably overran an infield pop-up:
Ernie Clement is presented a single right here on a missed catch by Freeman.
He’s now as much as a 58% swing charge on the primary pitch this Postseason.
The league common swing charge on the primary pitch was 32% within the reg. season.#WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/DyHQEl88mb
— Inside Edge (@IE_MLB) October 26, 2025
Runner on first, no person out, xBA .000. Nothing got here of it.
Lastly, within the third, the Blue Jays acquired on the board. Springer wore a Yamamoto fastball off his forearm, superior to 3rd on Guerrero’s one-out single, and scored on Kirk’s sacrifice fly. However Toronto solely scored one this time, and Yamamoto discovered his footing, setting down the Blue Jays so as within the subsequent 4 innings.
That one run stored the Jays in it, as a result of after Smith’s first-inning single, Gausman retired the subsequent 17 batters. This was traditional Gausman, virtually all fastball/splitter. It’s going arm-side, however with God is aware of what vertical break and at God is aware of what velocity. Hit it, when you can.
A lot of the Dodgers couldn’t. Teoscar Hernández confronted Gausman thrice and struck out every time up, tied up and cooked like a roulade. Gausman had been pulled in the course of the sixth inning in 5 of his six profession postseason begins; this time, he not solely skated by way of six, he acquired the primary out of the seventh on his first pitch of the inning, and solely his 66th of the night time. With John Smoltz within the sales space, Gausman was pacing himself for a Jack Morris-like 10-inning full sport.
However whereas Gausman was gobbling up outs, he was doing so in a fashion that prefigured what was to return.
Gausman’s splitter is great. It’s godlike. It’s unsporting. In an effort to throw it successfully, he must throw his four-seamer as nicely; the fastball is the jab, the splitter is the facility punch. This common season, opponents hit .230 and slugged .380 in opposition to Gausman’s fastball, which is definitely fairly good for a four-seamer. Final season, they hit .281 and slugged .475, which is much less so.
For those who’re going to get Gausman, you’re going to get the fastball.
For six innings, the Dodgers weren’t getting the fastball in any respect. And it’s not as a result of it wasn’t hittable. The Dodgers swung at 25 of Gausman’s 49 fastballs, whiffed solely thrice, and put 14 of them in play. Right here’s the place these had been positioned:
Greater than half of Gausman’s batted fastballs registered as “Laborious Hit” by Baseball Savant’s definition. However of the primary 12 fastballs the Dodgers put in play, just one traveled greater than 308 ft. Final night time, Varsho hit a uncommon left-on-left homer off Blake Snell, enabled by one of many worst pitches you’ll ever see Snell throw, a middle-middle pipe shot that any batter with common energy must hit 400 ft with out respiratory heavy.
Within the fourth, Gausman threw a pitch to Freeman that was, if something, even simpler to hit. First pitch, larger within the zone, solely 93.6 mph. Freeman acquired most of it, driving it Varsho’s manner at 108.4 mph, however didn’t get all of it. Two pitches later, Smith took simply as meaty a fastball and acquired beneath it. Gausman concluded the sixth by tying up Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts for consecutive pop-outs.
Nearly as good as Gausman was, he was getting away with it a bit of. Within the seventh, his luck ran out. This was arguably a greater pitch than those the Dodgers had been knocking into the ceiling all night time, veering laborious proper and into Smith’s arms. However he tucked his arms in, and out the ball went:
Two batters later, Muncy adopted with an opposite-field shot on a virtually an identical pitch. That did it for Gausman, and the Dodgers tacked on two insurance coverage runs off the ever-present Louis Varland.
The Blue Jays by no means fought again. As a result of generally, when alternative knocks, Yoshinobu Yamamoto sneaks up behind it, covers its face with a rag soaked in chloroform, and hides its unconscious metaphorical physique behind a metaphorical topiary.
Sorry, I’m getting carried away.
By the point the sport ended, it was laborious to keep in mind that for the primary three innings, Yamamoto appeared genuinely shaky. He was leaving fastballs in unhealthy locations, working deep counts, working by way of site visitors. Had the Blue Jays transformed three straight lead runners on base into a couple of run, they may as soon as once more have gotten to see the face Emmet Sheehan makes when he’s making an attempt to make himself invisible amid a nine-run inning.
However after Guerrero singled to place Springer in place to attain the Jays’ solely run, Yamamoto didn’t permit a single baserunner for the remainder of the night time.
Yamamoto ended the night on a string of 20 consecutive Toronto hitters retired. Coupled with Gausman’s 17-batter streak earlier within the sport, this was the primary time in main league playoff historical past that each starters in a postseason sport retired 14 or extra batters in a row.
You’d assume that these two right-handed pitchers, each masters of the splitter, would have related types. Not so. Whereas Gausman rode two pitches virtually solely, Yamamoto sprinkled in all six of his in numerous proportions every time by way of the order:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s Pitch Utilization by Time By way of the Order
| TTTO | Fastball | Sinker | Cutter | Splitter | Curveball | Slider |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 8 | 0 |
| 2 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 8 | 2 |
| 4 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
| CSW | 7 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 9 | 2 |
| Hits | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Supply: Baseball Savant
Having overexposed his splitter early, he pulled again within the mid-game, leaning on his cutter, then his breaking stuff, earlier than going again to his moneymaker late, like Lynyrd Skynyrd closing with “Freebird.”
Because the innings turned over and Yamamoto’s pitch depend stayed in an inexpensive vary, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts by no means encountered a purpose to take his starter out.
When Justin Verlander struck out 13 Yankees over 9 innings in Recreation 2 of the 2017 ALCS, it had been precisely a yr for the reason that final postseason full sport. It was eight years to the day earlier than the subsequent — Yamamoto, in Recreation 2 of the NLCS in opposition to Milwaukee. Yamamoto repeated the trick in his very subsequent begin, 11 days later. In so doing, he grew to become the primary pitcher since Curt Schilling in 2001, and the primary Dodger since Orel Hershiser in 1988, to pitch an entire sport in consecutive postseason begins.
Like Gausman, Yamamoto wasn’t on some 30-whiff strikeout binge. He acquired 15 whiffs and eight strikeouts, which is sweet, however not spectacular. However he didn’t stroll anybody. He threw 73 strikes out of 105 pitches. When he gave up laborious contact, he stored it on the bottom.
The exemplary late-game Yamamoto at-bat, to me, was the one which ended the seventh. Toronto supervisor John Schneider reached for his final card to play, Bo Bichette, who’d gone 1-for-2 with a stroll on one knee in Recreation 1.
Bichette laced the ball into the opening — 107.7 mph, the third-hardest batted ball of the night time for both staff — however throughout the vary of Betts. The Dodger shortstop, clearly cognizant of the truth that Bichette couldn’t outrun the tide in his present situation, took loads of time to line up an correct throw. Betts, and Yamamoto, did precisely what was required to win. No extra, no much less.
The air of invincibility is gone after getting boat raced in Recreation 1, however the Dodgers will little question come dwelling glad with a cut up in Toronto. After tasting canvas for the primary time since (I’d argue) final yr’s NLCS, they did to the Blue Jays what they’d finished to the Brewers and Phillies previously two rounds: Waited out their opponent’s ace and nosed over the road late. When alternative knocked, the Dodgers answered.