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The Los Angeles Dodgers are facing a 2-0 deficit in the NLCS after Yoshinobu Yamamoto was sent to the showers following the worst postseason performance of his career.
After Monday’s 7-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, Yamamoto isn’t sure what went wrong in the third inning.
“I don’t know the exact reason yet, I need to check the videos on what happened today,” Yamamoto said. “I wanted to get through the third inning but couldn’t.”
Yamamoto tossed 2 ⅔ innings on 75 pitches, while giving up four hits, three runs, two walks and only striking out one batter.
The Dodgers World Series hero from a year ago was pulled in the middle of the third inning, when Christian Yelich gave Milwaukee a 3-2 lead from a two-run RBI single.
Before Yelich came up to bat, the Brewers were relentlessly working Yamamoto, making him throw 22 pitches between David Hamilton, Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, and William Contreras.
Turang was down 0-2 in the count, then saw four pitches go past him for a walk.
During the at-bat, Yamamoto tried to get Turang to chase outside but couldn’t get him to bite.
He attempted to challenge the final pitch of the at-bat but was denied, leaving him appearing frustrated while on the mound.
Two at-bats later, Yamamoto had his biggest challenge yet of the postseason. Jake Bauers.
In two at-bats against Yamamoto, Bauers saw a total of 17 pitches against the Dodgers star, including a 12-pitch at-bat in the third inning, where he threw five different pitch sequences in the final six pitches of the at-bat.
“I was trying to work on the edge of the zone, some pitches were really good,” Yamamoto said. “He just stayed on it. He did a good job.”
Yamamoto was on the verge of getting out of the inning by forcing Bauers into a 3-2 count until Bauers fouled off six pitches and forced his way on base with a walk, setting the stage for Yelich to take the plate with the bases loaded.
Alex Vesia was brought in afterward, and he got Garrett Mitchell to go down swinging.
After the half inning was over, Dave Roberts told Ken Rosenthal during a live interview during the game that he “felt we had to stop the damage right there.”
Los Angeles tacked on three more runs after Yamamoto’s departure but couldn’t match the Brewers as Contreras went 3-for-4 at the plate with three RBIs, including a game-tying home run in the fifth and a go-ahead RBI single in the sixth.
The Brewers tacked on two more runs in the eighth on RBI singles from Hamilton and Bauers to give the game its final score.