by Cary Osborne
The Reds were rattling the gate and about to bust it open.
The bases were loaded. The Dodgers held a one-run lead. There were no outs. It was getting late.
And yet the pitcher standing right in front of it all was breathing free and easy.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto kept the gate closed and put a lock on it. He retired the final three batters of the sixth inning, two by strikeout, and kept the Reds from scoring.
The Dodger offense then responded with a four-run bottom of the sixth.
Yamamoto is proving in a short time that he is October clutch. He helped lift the Dodgers to a Wild Card Series sweep with 6 2/3 excellent innings on a Major League-career high 113 pitches. The Dodgers beat the Reds 8–4 and advanced to the National League Division Series where they will play the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday.
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Yamamoto now owns three Major League postseason victories:
· Wednesday’s Wild Card clincher vs. the Reds
· 2024 World Series Game 2 vs. the Yankees
· 2024 NLDS Game 5 clincher vs. the Padres
In those three critical postseason games, Yamamoto has allowed one earned run over a combined 18 innings.
On Wednesday, he allowed two runs — both unearned. Teoscar Hernández hustled in but dropped a two-out fly ball in the first inning. Cincinnati’s Sal Stewart followed with a two-run single and the Dodgers were in an early 2–0 hole.
Yamamoto threw an additional 12 pitches after the error.
“In that moment, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the error I made,” Hernández said. “I don’t want to make those errors, especially when he’s pitching. I want to give him the best chance I can give him, so he can go deep in the game and give us a better chance.”
But inning after inning, Yamamoto threw up zeroes, retiring 13 in a row from the first through sixth innings.
The first three Reds singled in the sixth inning.
“I thought he was going to find a way to get out of that,” said third baseman Max Muncy.
Yamamoto induced a fielder’s choice out at the plate for the first out, then struck out the rookie Stewart swinging on a curveball. Stewart missed on all three swings of the at-bat. Elly De La Cruz fouled off two two-strike pitches from Yamamoto before the right-hander unraveled a curveball inside that the Reds shortstop swung through.
“Given that game situation, I didn’t want to allow any hits,” Yamamoto said. “And also the first out, which was inducing a ground ball, that kept the runners (from scoring). I tried to keep runners away from advancing. So I think that was good.”
Then Yamamoto kept going, recording two more outs in the seventh inning. Yamamoto wouldn’t pitch till Game 3 of the National League Series at the earliest, which is a week away. The Dodgers let him get to 113 pitches before calling it a night.
“Going to that point, throwing 110 pitches, just to go seven innings there, it says a lot about a guy that he’s not satisfied what we did last year,” said second baseman Miguel Rojas. “He wants another one.”
By that point, the Dodgers led 7–2.
Mookie Betts drove in three runs — an RBI single in the third inning to cut the Reds’ lead to 2–1, an RBI double in the sixth to give the Dodgers a 5–2 lead and an RBI single in the seventh to lift the lead to 8–2.
Betts went 4-for-5 in the game with three doubles, tying a franchise record for most doubles in a postseason game. Betts went 6-for-9 in the series with a walk.
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Yamamoto had another partner in the clutch category.
Kiké Hernández, in another big moment, tied the score in the fourth inning with an RBI double. Rojas drove Hernández in with a single to give the Dodgers their first lead of the game at 3–2.
They never let go of it.
Roki Sasaki covered the last three outs in an impressive ninth inning to send the Dodgers to the NLDS. He struck out two batters. Six of his 11 reached 100 mph.
“I trust him, and he’s going to be pitching in leverage,” said manager Dave Roberts of Sasaki going forward.
Roberts also dropped one more thing for the Phillies to think about: Shohei Ohtani will pitch Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday.
2025 Wild Card: Welcome Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the clutch conversation was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.