MILWAUKEE — Yoshinobu Yamamoto wasn’t sure, couldn’t say, didn’t understand yet.
It must have been a foreign feeling for the Dodgers ace, a successful man obsessed with details and generally unaccustomed to failure. Yamamoto just had the worst performance of his spectacular, historic postseason career. He went just 2 2/3 innings against the Milwaukee Brewers in Los Angeles’ NLCS Game 2 loss on Monday. It was his shortest October start.
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So Yamamoto sat at the postgame podium next to translator Yoshihiro Sonoda and tried to answer questions about an afternoon gone wrong. He wore a blue Dodgers hoodie and expressed confusion.
“I don’t know exactly why yet,” the 2025 World Series MVP said, via Sonoda. “I have to check the videos, then I can think about what happened today.”
He’ll have plenty of time to think about the long, quiet flight home to Los Angeles. If the Dodgers don’t win two games this week in Chavez Ravine, Yamamoto could spend the entire winter in this game. The possibility of a Game 6 return at American Family Field is no longer a certainty. Because the Los Angeles Dodgers — back-to-back champions and baseball’s boogeyman — are down two games to zero in this best-of-seven set.
A dynasty hangs in the balance.
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“Well, we had three hits tonight…” manager Dave Roberts mused after his team’s disappointing 7-4 loss. “Some were starters and some were bullpen. I don’t have an answer for why.”
This sense of confusion, clearly felt by Roberts, Yamamoto and other members of DodgerLand, is entirely reasonable. The Dodgers have not dropped the first two games of a postseason series since the 2023 NLDS. Shohei Ohtani was then an Angel of Anaheim. Kyle Tucker was a Houston Astros. Yamamoto Oryx was Buffalo. After a shocking 2023 exit to a less-talented Arizona Diamondbacks team, the Dodgers reoriented their pitching balance by adding Ohtani and Yamamoto.
Since then, they are 8-0 in the postseason series.
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“It was tough,” Mookie Betts said as he watched the usually metronomic Yamamoto stumble. “But you know, he’s human. I think everyone’s just too used to him being a robot.”
Yamamoto took the mound on Monday with the second-lowest postseason ERA in MLB history among pitchers with at least 10 playoff starts. He walked down the same mound a little over an hour later, shell-shocked, with just eight runs recorded in the book and three earned runs. The setting Wisconsin sun pierced the windows of the outdoor stadium. Many in the crowd, smelling blood and feeling hope, waved goodbye to Yamamoto.
Milwaukee’s offense deserves a mountain of credit for bringing down Yamamoto. The Brewers’ lineup turned Game 2 from a surge to a war of attrition. Yamamoto needed 25 pitches to end a rocky first inning highlighted by a William Contreras RBI single. After a clean second, trouble found Yamamoto in third.
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Stretch plate appearances by 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, bases-loaded walk to Jake Bauers pinch hit Yamamoto. Christian Yelich delivered the knockout blow with a single that put Milwaukee up 3-2 and ended Yamamoto’s night.
There were several boundary calls along the way which were not prevented by the backstop Will Smith. Maybe a headbutt or two would have stopped the bleeding, but it’s not hard given how rambunctious Yamamoto looks. He finished the inning with 36 pitches, his most in one frame all year.
“He just wasn’t there tonight, which is very rare,” Roberts said.
But even with Yamamoto out, the Dodgers still had a chance to win this game. The Brewers’ lackluster play helped keep the window open. The Los Angeles offense scored its first run without the help of a hit, added its second on a botched pickoff attempt and took a 4-3 lead after Milwaukee starter Logan Henderson hit a sack past Bowers stretching down the left field line.
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It turned out to be the Dodgers’ last base run. Milwaukee went ahead in the sixth against reliever Brock Stewart, then regained the lead in the eighth. Los Angeles’ collection of stars had no answer for a Brewers bullpen that recorded 15 straight outs to end the game.
The Dodgers’ hitters are a tough group.
“Their bats were better than ours, top to bottom,” Roberts said afterward.
Ohtani and Smith went a combined 0-for-8 in Game 2, posting a combined 4-for-43 playoff line with zero extra base hits and 15 strikeouts, continuing their improbably barren postseason. Baseball is random, unpredictable, unforgiving, but this is the shocking coldness of two of the game’s most accomplished players. Smith hit a few balls well on Monday. Ohtani, who is still physically compromised, did not. He struck out twice, including a freak half-swing in the sixth inning that sent his bat into the air.
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“It’s hard to see, but he’s working and hopefully he’ll get over it,” Betts said of Ohtani. “We need him, no doubt.”
Ohtani was not available to the media after Game 2 for the sixth straight time this postseason. The last time we heard from the four-time MVP was the day of practice before Game 1 of the NLDS. His outlook, then, was imbued with optimism.
“[My body] overall it feels really good. I feel like my swing is in a better place, it feels smooth and I’m making a little bit of adjustments here and there,” Ohtani said on Oct. 2. He’s 3-for-20 since then.
The mood in the Los Angeles clubhouse after the loss was predictable. The players ate dinner, showered, changed into their dark gray tracksuits and headed to the bus.
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Sonoda, Yamamoto’s interpreter, still not wearing his team-branded sweater, but in a slightly more revealing outfit, made his way across the room. He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt with the word “Bruh” on a white background with a picture of a black pug on it.
Bruh, really.