An awe-inspiring MVP ‘had everything,’ except a chance to rest

Los Angeles Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto has joined an exclusive club -- pitchers who earned three wins in the World Series. His third victory came in relief in Game 7 on Saturday, when he threw 34 pitches in two and two-thirds innings on no days’ rest. (Reddit via r/Dodgers 00rient)

By TYLER KEPNER / THE ATHLETIC

Randy Johnson stared into the eyes of Christy Mathewson. This was in July, in the plaque gallery at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Johnson was studying the likeness of a pitcher who once overtook autumn the way he did, but about a century earlier.

“You know, you’re one of the few people to ever do what Mathewson did,” a visitor told Johnson. “You both won three games in a World Series.”

“Yeah,” Johnson replied. “But one of mine was in relief.”

Fair enough. But when that third victory comes in Game 7, after a start and a win the night before, the achievement echoes through the hallowed corridors of Cooperstown. It is the kind of thing that keeps us watching in wonder and warm all winter. It is greatness.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers joined the club over the weekend at Rogers Centre, capping a spellbinding World Series finale that could break your bat and your heart. Yamamoto earned his third victory, a 5-4 triumph against the Toronto Blue Jays that ended in the 11th inning on the shattered bat of Alejandro Kirk, who tapped a splitter to Mookie Betts at shortstop for a season-ending double play.

For Yamamoto, it was the culmination of one of the most remarkable pitching feats in World Series history. In Game 2, two Saturdays ago, he threw the first World Series complete game in a decade. Facing elimination in Game 6 on Friday, he beat the Blue Jays again with six strong innings.

And then, in Game 7, Yamamoto collected the final eight outs to make the Dodgers the first repeat champion in 25 years.

“For him to have the same stuff that he had the night before is really the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever seen on a major league baseball field,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president for baseball operations.

Any of Yamamoto’s pitches in the ninth or 10th innings, when the score was tied, could have lost the World Series for the Dodgers. After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. led off the bottom of the 11th with a double, all of Yamamoto’s remaining pitches could have lost the series, too.

He threw 34 pitches in Game 7, after logging 96 in Game 6. He also threw 105 in Game 2 and a few in the bullpen near the end of the Game 3 marathon. It was a World Series for the ages, an MVP effort that left his teammates in awe.

“I don’t think you’ll ever see somebody do what Yama did tonight,” said Clayton Kershaw, the retiring lion of the pitching staff, adding: “And for him to come in and say he’s willing to do that, and not just throw one inning, but I don’t even know what it was — two and a third? You can’t even describe how he was feeling.

“I’ve done some short-rest stuff and pitched on one day’s rest. I’ve never done no days’ rest. So his arm probably doesn’t feel great right now. But he is amazing, he really is, and his stuff was incredible tonight.”

Starters in Japan pitch once a week, and all of Yamamoto’s 57 regular- and postseason starts for the Dodgers have come with at least five days’ rest. He acknowledged he did not know what to expect.

“When I started in the bullpen before I went in, to be honest, I was not really sure if I could pitch up there to my best ability,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “But as I started getting warmed up, I started making a little bit of an adjustment, and then I started thinking I can go in and do my job.”

The Blue Jays had to believe they had seen the last of Yamamoto after Game 6.

“He’s one of the best in the world; he might be making a case for being the best,” Bo Bichette said that night. “I mean, he was amazing. Good command, good stuff, he had everything.”

That mix of everything is partly why the Dodgers made Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in baseball when they signed him for 12 years and $325 million in December 2023. He was 75-30 with a 1.72 ERA in Japan, all through age 25. And he was not satisfied.

“He’s always looking to get better,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “He’s looking to perfect his craft. He’s always looking to figure out a way to get hitters out, different ways.”

Dodgers owner Mark Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, said that Yamamoto was a “good bet” because of his age — he is 27 now — and that he did not want to miss a rare opportunity to sign a pitcher of his caliber. He trusts the evaluations of Friedman and his staff.

“They make all the decisions,” Walter said. “I just tell them yes.”

For all of the data that led to that yes, there was no way to expect this. Freakish arm talent, deep mix of pitches — sure, Friedman said, that stuff they could see.

“And some of the other factors, you don’t really know,” Friedman said. “There is an unknown there, and he has exceeded those intangibles.”

They had an inkling in Game 3. The Dodgers won in 18 innings, but if the game had kept going, Yamamoto would have pitched the 19th. Bullpen coach Josh Bard reported that Yamamoto’s stuff had looked good.

But that was after one day of rest. Seeing Yamamoto work with zero rest defied logic.

Reliever Jack Dreyer: “Absolute gangster. One of his first pitches was like a 93 mile-an-hour splitter, and we were like, ‘That’s just inhumane.’ It’s literally insane that he’s able to do that.”

First baseman Freddie Freeman: “I was surprised he was even warming up, to be honest with you. When I looked back and saw him throwing, I was like, wow. Just absolutely incredible.”

The only real precedent is Johnson, whose performance for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series matches Yamamoto’s almost precisely.

In 2001, Johnson had a complete-game shutout in Game 2, pitched seven innings in Game 6 and 1 1/3 innings in Game 7. His totals were 3-0 with a 1.04 ERA (17 1/3 innings, two earned runs, three walks, 19 strikeouts).

In 2025, Yamamoto had a complete game in Game 2, pitched six innings in Game 6 and 2 2/3 innings in Game 7. His totals were 3-0 with a 1.02 ERA (17 2/3 innings, two earned runs, two walks, 15 strikeouts).

Nine other pitchers have won three games in a best-of-seven World Series, but half of those were more than a century ago: Mathewson of the 1905 New York Giants, Babe Adams of the 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, Jack Coombs of the 1910 Philadelphia A’s, Smoky Joe Wood of the 1912 Boston Red Sox and Red Faber of the 1917 Chicago White Sox.

Six have now done it since World War II: Harry Brecheen of the 1946 St. Louis Cardinals, Lew Burdette of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, Bob Gibson of the 1967 Cardinals, Mickey Lolich of the 1968 Detroit Tigers, plus Johnson and Yamamoto.

Now consider the pressure on Yamamoto in Game 7. He actually faced two Golden Pitch scenarios, the very rare circumstance in which any pitch could win or lose the World Series for either team.

The first, against Addison Barger, was possible but far-fetched. Barger came up as the winning run with one out and Guerrero at third. A homer would have won it for Toronto and a lineout double play would have won it for the Dodgers. Barger walked on four pitches.

Then came Kirk, a legitimate power threat with five home runs in October. He fouled a cutter, took a curve for strike two, and then hit Yamamoto’s splitter off the end of the bat, sending barrel and ball bouncing onto the turf. Betts turned the first World Series-ending double play since 1947, when the New York Yankees finished off the Brooklyn Dodgers that way in Game 7, and that was that.

When a World Series takes you back 99 years, and a pitcher conjures Mathewson or Johnson, you know you have seen something monumental. Yamamoto donated his cap to the Hall of Fame, and someday he might have a plaque there, too.

It is much too soon to know how the rest of his story unfolds. But the chapter he wrote in fall 2025 — a volume of volume, you could say — will be treasured forever.

“There’s a reason he couldn’t lift that MVP trophy up,” Freeman said. “I don’t think he could.”