Yoshinobu Yamamoto has done a lot of big things since joining the Dodgers, and continued to establish his resumé as an October ace with seven strong innings to beat the Braves in Game 3 of the NLDS on Tuesday night in Atlanta.
Yamamoto allowed only one run in the win, and got through seven innings on 98 pitches. On the season, Yamamoto has allowed zero or one run in 15 of his 29 starts.
“Wow, what a performance,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters in Atlanta. “He just has a way to just make pitches,
calm his heartbeat. And I think he made two mistakes all night — the first pitch to [Matt] Olson; Lane Thomas, that cutter that just didn’t get there. But outside of that he was awesome.”
Yamamoto has started 10 times for the Dodgers in the postseason, plus one relief appearance. That’s 11 total appearances, and the Dodgers have won 10 times. Yamamoto himself is 8-1 in the postseason with a stingy 2.14 ERA. His last five postseason outings, dating back to last year’s NLCS, are wins.
Yamamoto’s 10 strikeouts on Tuesday night are his postseason career high with the Dodgers, and he joined select company in franchise history. It was just the 20th postseason game by a Dodgers pitcher with double-digit strikeouts, accomplished by 13 different pitchers.
Clayton Kershaw has the most such games with six, starting with Game 1 of the 2013 NLDS in Atlanta to 13 strikeouts in Game 2 of the 2020 wild card series to close out the Brewers.
Don Newcombe was the first Dodgers pitcher with double-digit strikeouts in the postseason, fanning 11 Yankees in Game 1 of the 1949 World Series. Unfortunately he was on the tough-luck end of a 1-0 loss, with New York right-hander Allie Reynolds striking out nine in a shutout win at Yankee Stadium.
Carl Erskine set a World Series record with 14 strikeouts in Game 3 of the 1953 World Series at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, also against the Yankees. That mark stood for a decade, until Sandy Koufax struck out 15 in Game 1 of the 1963 World Series at Yankee Stadium.
“Everything I read about him was true, and everything they told us about him also was true,” Yankees star Mickey Mantle said of Koufax to the Associated Press. “What a pitcher!”
Koufax had three double-digit strikeout games in the World Series, with his other two a pair of games with exactly 10 strikeouts over a span of only four days in 1965, pitching shutouts in Games 5 and 7 to beat the Minnesota Twins.
Prior to Yamamoto, the last Dodgers pitcher with 10 strikeouts in a postseason game was Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS, when Shohei Ohtani struck out 10 Brewers while also hitting three home runs en route to winning NLCS MVP.
