A rare and shocking stinker from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, combined with another no-show from the offense, puts Dodgers into 0-2 hole in NLCS vs. Brewers

This sense of confusion, clearly felt by Roberts, Yamamoto and other members of DodgerLand, is perfectly reasonable. Not since the 2023 NLDS have the Dodgers dropped the first two games of a postseason series. Shohei Ohtani was an Anaheim Angel then. Kyle Tucker was a Houston Astro. Yamamoto was an Orix Buffalo. After that shocking 2023 exit to a less talented Arizona Diamondbacks team, the Dodgers reoriented the balance of sport by adding Ohtani and Yamamoto.

They are 8-0 in postseason series since then.

“It was tough,” Mookie Betts said about watching the typically metronomic Yamamoto stumble. “But you know, he’s a human being. I think everybody is so used to him being a robot.”

Yamamoto took the mound on Monday owning the second-lowest postseason ERA in MLB history among pitchers with at least 10 playoff starts. He strolled off that same hill a little more than an hour later, shellshocked, with just eight outs recorded and three earned runs on his ledger. The setting Wisconsin sun pierced through the open stadium windows. Many in the crowd, smelling blood and feeling hope, waved Yamamoto a tongue-in-cheek goodbye.

Milwaukee’s offense deserves a mountain of credit for grinding Yamamoto down. The Brewers’ lineup made Game 2 a war of attrition from the jump. Yamamoto needed 25 pitches to finish a rocky first inning marked by a William Contreras RBI single. After a clean second, trouble found Yamamoto in the third. 

Elongated plate appearances from David Hamilton (six pitches, single), Brice Turang (six pitches, walk) and Contreras (seven pitches, flyout) put Yamamoto on the ropes. Then an epic, 12-pitch showdown with Jake Bauers that ended with a bases-loading walk squeezed Yamamoto dry. Christian Yelich provided the knockout blow with a go-ahead single to put Milwaukee up 3-2 and end Yamamoto’s night.

There were a few borderline calls along the way that went unchallenged by backstop Will Smith. Perhaps a head tap or two might have stopped the bleeding, but there’s no challenging how adrift Yamamoto looked. He finished the inning having thrown 36 pitches, the most he has thrown in a single frame all year.

“He just didn't have it tonight, which is very rare,” Roberts said.

But even with Yamamoto beaten and bested, the Dodgers still had a chance to win this game. Uncharacteristically sloppy play from the Brewers helped keep the window propped open. Los Angeles’ offense scored its first run without the help of a hit, added its second on a wayward pickoff attempt and retook the lead 4-3 in the fifth after Milwaukee starter Logan Henderson hurled a sac bunt past an outstretched Bauers down the left-field line. 

That turned out to be the Dodgers’ last baserunner. Milwaukee hopped back in front against reliever Brock Stewart in the sixth, then padded the lead in the eighth. Los Angeles’ collection of stars had no answer for a dialed-in Brewers bullpen that recorded 15 straight outs to end the game. 

The Dodgers’ hitters are a group in dire straits.

"They had much better at-bats than we did across the board, top-to-bottom," Roberts lamented afterward.

Ohtani and Smith continued their unfathomably barren postseason, going a combined 0-for-8 in Game 2 to push their combined playoff line to 4-for-43 with zero extra-base hits and 15 strikeouts. Baseball is notoriously random, unpredictable, unforgiving, but this is a shocking cold stretch from two of the game’s most accomplished hitters. Smith hit a few balls well on Monday. Ohtani, still compromised physically, did not. He struck out twice, including on a bizarre half-swing in the sixth inning that sent his bat twirling into the air. 

“It’s hard to see, but he’s working, and hopefully he gets out of it,” Betts said of Ohtani. “We need him, for sure.”

Ohtani, for the sixth consecutive time this postseason, was not made available to the media after Game 2. The last we heard from the four-time MVP was on the workout day ahead of NLDS Game 1. His outlook, at that point, was soaked in optimism.

“[My body] feels really good overall. I do feel like my swing is in a better place, feels smooth, and just a little tweaks here and there,” Ohtani said on Oct. 2. He’s 3-for-20 since then.

The mood was predictably dour in Los Angeles’ clubhouse after the loss. Players ate dinner, showered, donned matching dark-gray tracksuits and filed toward the bus. 

Sonoda, Yamamoto’s interpreter, yet to don his team-brand sweatshirt, bounced across the room in a slightly more conspicuous outfit. He wore a navy blue shirt, featuring a picture of a black pug on a white background just above the word “Bruh.”

Bruh, indeed.