‘Electric’ Yamamoto delivers, puts Dodgers up 2-0
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — For the second night in a row, the World Series came down to a bases-loaded, last at-bat situation for the trailing team. This time there were no late-inning heroics.
Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia induced New York Yankees pinch hitter Jose Trevino to fly out to center field to preserve a 4-2 win Saturday night, the second in a row for the Dodgers, who lead 2-0 in the best-of-seven series with Game 3 on Monday in New York.
Not unlike Yankees reliever Nestor Cortes, who gave up a walk-off grand slam to Freddie Freeman in Game 1, Vesia was coming off an injury that forced him to miss the NLCS. But he shook off the rust with an inning of work on Friday and then was called upon to relieve righty Blake Treinen, who loaded the bases on two singles and a hit-by-pitch.
Like Freeman, Trevino went first-pitch hunting, just getting under a ball that landed 345 feet away and into center fielder Tommy Edman‘s glove.
The 52,725 in attendance at Dodger Stadium let out a collective sigh of relief — as did the guy on the mound.
“It all happened pretty fast,” Vesia said afterward. “With bases loaded and two outs for me, starting the hitter 1-0 is all the advantage to the hitter, so I wanted to attack to my strengths and try to execute a pitch.”
The inner-half, four-seam fastball did the trick, highlighting a night of great pitching for the usually offense-driven Dodgers, who might have lost star designated hitter Shohei Ohtani to a shoulder injury.
Coming into the game, the Dodgers had scored at least six runs in six of their past seven postseason games, and it appeared they were on their way to making it seven out of eight after Edman, Teoscar Hernandez and Freeman homered in the second and third innings, respectively. But the Dodgers would not score again. They wouldn’t need to, thanks to starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was spectacular, tossing his best game since beating the Yankees in early June.
“That was an incredible start for Yamamoto,” Treinen said. “It’s going to go up there as probably one of the best starts in this postseason for sure.”
Yamamoto went 6⅓ innings, giving up only one hit — a solo home run to Juan Soto — while walking two and striking out four, including Aaron Judge twice. His five-pitch mix was as good as it has been in a while, considering the right-hander was working his way back from an arm injury throughout August and into September. Some of his outings, even in the postseason, looked more like spring appearances. He went three innings in Game 1 of the NLDS, then five in Game 5 of that series, then back down to 4⅓ innings in Game 4 of the NLCS. He hadn’t thrown more than 73 pitches since late September. That changed in Game 2 of the World Series when he threw 86 stress-free pitches with plenty of movement.
“By the time I came off the IL, I was already as good as — pretty much close to where I was before,” Yamamoto said through a team interpreter. “Then after that, as I started pitching in a game, then I think I got better.”
The Yankees were off-balance all night. Yamamoto threw 42 fastballs, 21 curves, 11 splitters, eight sliders and four cutters. Fifty-four of his 86 went for strikes.
“He’s really good,” Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “He’s electric. His split seems like it goes three different ways. He throws strikes. He keeps his composure. I can see why he’s had so much success in Japan and so much success here this year.”
Manager Aaron Boone added: “It was hard to be patient with him when he was on the attack and getting ahead.”
Yamamoto was a huge offseason signing for the Dodgers, inking a 12-year, $325 million contract, but the Rookie of the Year favorite to begin the season took a little time to find his stride. His ERA would eventually fall under 3.00, in June, just after shutting out the Yankees over seven innings and just before he would go on the injured list because of a rotator-cuff issue. When he came back in September, the Dodgers took things slow. They’re benefitting from it now.
“There wasn’t much stress in the game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Yeah, he hasn’t been in the seventh inning since that Yankee game [in June]. I felt we had a good building-block foundation.”
Yamamoto came off the mound to a standing ovation in the seventh and now is in line to pitch Game 6, if necessary, on an extra day of rest. The performance came amid a cloud of uncertainty for the Dodgers as it relates to their best player. Ohtani will have an MRI on Sunday to determine the severity of his shoulder injury — though the Dodgers are confident they can win even if he has to miss time.
“Oh, yeah, a thousand percent,” Teoscar Hernandez said. “We were battling throughout the year with a lot of injuries. First was the starting pitcher and then Mookie and then Freddie. And hopefully Ohtani is not the case.”
Between Jack Flaherty’s performance in Game 1 and Yamamoto’s in Game 2, Hernandez might be right about his team’s chances if Ohtani can’t play. They might lose some offense, but all of a sudden the Dodgers have more starting pitching than anyone realized. For most of the postseason, their storyline on the mound has revolved around their bullpen. That might be changing at the most important time of the playoffs.
“The last two nights everybody said maybe we don’t have the starting arms to make a run in the World Series, [but] what Jack did yesterday and Yamamoto in his first World series game, that’s really impressive,” Treinen said.
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia slugger Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs Thursday night against Atlanta to become the 21st major leaguer and fourth Phillies player to accomplish the feat.
Schwarber was 4-for-6 with a Phillies-record nine RBI in the 19-4 victory. He took the outright National League homer lead with a career-high 49 and moved within one of Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the major league lead. Schwarber leads the majors with a career-high 119 RBIs.
“It’s pretty cool,” Schwarber said. “It was a fun night, great atmosphere. Wouldn’t want to do it with a better group of guys than we have here.”
Mike Schmidt was the last Philadelphia player to hit four homers in a game, doing so at the Chicago Cubs in April 1976. Schwarber had the third four-homer game of the season, following Eugenio Suárez and Nick Kurtz.
Schwarber’s 49 homers passed Ryan Howard (2008) and Schmidt (1980) for the second most in a season in Phillies history, trailing only Ryan Howard’s 58 in 2006.
“It just cooperated,” said Schwarber, who had entered the game hitless in his last 20 at-bats, by far the longest such streak entering a four-home run game since 1900. “You can do everything right and get out, and you can do everything wrong and get a hit. Got some pitches and put some good swings on it.”
Schwarber started the power surge with a solo shot in the first inning off Cal Quantrill, sending a 2-1 curveball into the right-field seats. Schwarber hit a flyout to center in the second.
After Quantrill was lifted with one out and two runners on base in the fourth, Schwarber greeted lefty Austin Cox by sending a 3-2 curveball over the wall in right for his fourth multihomer game of the season.
With “M-V-P! M-V-P!” chants ringing down from Phillies fans in the fifth, Schwarber launched a three-run drive to left off Cox to put Philadelphia ahead 15-3. In the seventh, Schwarber hit a three-run shot to right off Wander Suero to make it 18-4.
Schwarber popped out in the eighth against Braves third baseman Vidal Brujan.
“I stink against position players,” Schwarber said jokingly. “All you’re trying to do is get a good pitch. I got the pitch. Just popped it up.”
Schwarber, 32, has 333 homers in 11 seasons in the majors primarily with the Cubs and Phillies. He had a previous career high of 47 home runs in 2023 for Philadelphia.
The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — In his latest setback, Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez was diagnosed with a fracture in the pinkie finger in his left hand, manager Carlos Mendoza said Thursday.
Alvarez, 23, sustained the injury when he was hit by a pitch on his left hand during a game for Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday. Mendoza said Alvarez will wait until the inflammation in the finger diminishes — he estimated two or three days — before resuming baseball activities. The third-year catcher was already on the injured list and on rehab assignment because of an ulnar collateral ligament sprain in his right thumb.
“This should be relatively short,” Mendoza said. “But, again, it’s a little bit of a setback compared to what the original plan was. But when you’re talking about you get the news, ‘Oh, he’s got a fracture,’ you’re thinking about the worst-case scenario, but apparently, that’s not the case here. So we just got to wait and see.”
This is Alvarez’s fourth hand injury in the past two years. Last season, he underwent surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb and missed nearly two months. This spring, he fractured his left hamate bone and missed the first month of the regular season.
His recent UCL sprain happened while sliding headfirst into second base Aug. 17. It’s the same thumb that he hurt last year. The UCL sprain will require surgery to heal, but the Mets are hopeful he can postpone the procedure until the offseason to avoid missing the remainder of the season. The surgery requires an eight-week recovery timetable. Instead, doctors cleared him to play as long as he can tolerate the pain in his throwing hand. Tearing it completely, however, would require surgery sooner and end his season. Now, he’s dealing with a fracture in his receiving hand.
“We’re not going to put him in a position where he’s very uncomfortable,” Mendoza said. “As tough as he is, he’s human. So, I think we got to get him to a point where it’s manageable because now we’re talking about the receiving hand, too. But, again, it’s a small fracture and we just got to wait. But it comes down to making sure we’re not putting the player in a position where he’s in danger.”
Alvarez played in his first rehab game for the UCL sprain Wednesday. He went 1-for-2 with a walk and was behind the plate for five innings. His right thumb was not tested by baserunners.
“The ball was coming out fine,” Mendoza said. “Good intensity, good carry. But, again, we got to wait and see when it happens in real action. When he’s got to do the transfer and get the ball in the air as quick as possible and put something on the throw. But, so far, in between innings yesterday, the five innings that he caught, he was fine.”
The UCL sprain interrupted Alvarez’s best stretch of the season, which began with him struggling so badly that the Mets optioned him to Syracuse in late June. Alvarez was batting .236 with three home runs and a .652 OPS in 35 games when he was sent down. He returned a month later to hit .323 with four home runs and a 1.054 OPS in 21 games until his thumb injury.
Without him, the Mets will continue rotating veteran Luis Torrens and rookie Hayden Senger behind the plate.
“It’s been hard for him,” Mendoza said.
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