MILWAUKEE (AP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a three-hitter for the first postseason complete game in eight years as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1 on Tuesday night to extend their lead in the National League Championship Series.
Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy each hit a solo homer as the Dodgers left Milwaukee with a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series, which shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Thursday.
“It’s really hard to say the pitching can step up any more than what they’ve been doing. But I know from our standpoint offensively there are still some moments that we can take advantage of,” Muncy said. “And so, yeah, I still think there’s another gear in there.”
Muncy’s 412-foot drive to center field was the 14th homer of his postseason career, breaking the Dodgers record he had shared with Corey Seager and Justin Turner.
Yamamoto allowed a home run to Jackson Chourio on the first of his 111 pitches — 81 strikes — but shut down the Brewers the rest of the way. The $325 million right-hander struck out seven and walked one during his first complete game in two major league seasons.
“This year he’s taken it to a whole other level,” Muncy said.
The previous postseason starter to go the distance was Justin Verlander when he tossed a five-hitter with 13 strikeouts for Houston against the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS on Oct. 14, 2017 — eight years ago to the day.
Yamamoto’s complete game was the first for Los Angeles since Gavin Stone’s gem on June 26 last year. The last Dodgers pitcher to throw a complete game in the postseason was Jose Lima against St. Louis in Game 3 of their 2004 NL Division Series.
This is the first time since 1970 that both LCS road teams started 2-0. The Seattle Mariners own a 2-0 lead over Toronto in the ALCS heading into Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle.
Twenty-four of the previous 27 teams that took the first two games on the road in a best-of-seven series with a 2-3-2 format have gone on to win. The three teams to come back after losing Games 1 and 2 at home all came in World Series: the 1985 Kansas City Royals against the St. Louis Cardinals, the 1986 New York Mets against the Boston Red Sox, and the 1996 New York Yankees against the Atlanta Braves.
The Brewers pulled out all the stops Tuesday as they tried to avoid that 2-0 deficit. Former slugger Eric Thames got on the field to exhort fans just before the game and popped open his jersey to reveal his bare chest.
The 21-year-old Chourio then delighted a sellout crowd by sending Yamamoto’s first pitch over the right-center wall for his fourth career postseason homer, tying Orlando Arcia and Prince Fielder for the Brewers record.
That seemed like a foreboding start for Yamamoto, who lasted just two-thirds of an inning in an 8-1 loss the previous time he pitched in Milwaukee. But he bounced back and silenced the Brewers the rest of the way.
The Brewers have five hits in the series. Los Angeles left-hander Blake Snell limited them to one hit and no walks over eight innings during the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory in Game 1.
“They were both great. Both those pitchers were as dominant as two pitchers have been,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “We chased way more than we’ve chased all year. We’ve been the best in baseball at not chasing. These pitchers brought out the worst in us.”
Los Angeles became the first team to have consecutive postseason starts of at least eight innings in the same series since San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum did it in Games 4 and 5 of the 2010 World Series against Texas.
After Chourio’s homer, Los Angeles wasted no time coming back against Brewers ace Freddy Peralta.
Hernández, whose baserunning mistake contributed to the Brewers’ unusual 8-6-2 double play in Game 1, sent a 3-2 curve over the left-field wall for his fourth homer of this postseason. Two outs later, Kiké Hernández singled and scored on Andy Pages’ double.
Pages had been 1 for 27 in the postseason before delivering his shot into the right-field corner.
Muncy extended the lead to 3-1 with his two-out homer in the sixth, which came on Peralta’s 97th and final pitch. The Dodgers added two more runs on RBI singles by Shohei Ohtani in the seventh and Tommy Edman in the eighth.
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