We live in a different era for MLB pitching. Bullpens are used more strategically than ever, with managers and front offices reluctant to push their starting pitchers. More often than not, it makes sense to deploy a fresh arm rather than having your likely tiring starter face the same hitters a third or fourth time through the lineup.
As such, complete games are essentially an endangered species, even for most pitchers with no-hitters on the line unless their pitch count is in pristine shape and their manager has full trust in them. During the 2025 regular season, the 30 teams combined for a grand total of 29 complete games — or one less than Hall of Fame southpaw Steve Carlton posted during his Cy Young-winning season for the Phillies in 1972. (The last-place Phils counted on “Lefty” for 346.1 innings. Yowza.)
The decline is steep from a mere decade ago. No one would confuse 2015 pitcher usage with Carlton’s era, but still, there were 104 in the majors. Six different aces had four complete games. In 2025, only four pitchers even recorded two … in the regular season, anyway.
Enter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The 27-year-old righty is in his second season with the Dodgers after signing a 12-year, $325 million deal during the 2023-24 offseason — remarkable for a man who had never thrown a pitch in in MLB, let alone the minors. But Yamamoto was no ordinary rookie, and the league knew it. He was one of the best pitchers in the world, having dominated the NPB since he was a teenager. He concluded his career in Japan with three consecutive MVPs and Sawamura Award honors (the NPB equivalent to MLB’s Cy Young), posting a 1.44 ERA with 580 strikeouts from 2021-23. Oh, and he also began 2023 by joining future teammate Shohei Ohtani in leading their country to a World Baseball Classic title.
Although a shoulder injury limited Yamamoto’s first MLB season to 18 starts, he still looked sharp and by the postseason, he was one of only a few healthy starting pitchers available to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. Indeed, he was their most consistent starter during the 2024 championship run, punctuated by a smooth win in World Series Game 2 against the Yankees, when he allowed one run in 6.1 innings. Yamamoto has been even better in his sophomore campaign, recording a 2.49 ERA and 201 strikeouts across 30 starts and 173.2 innings. He earned his first All-Star nod, led all MLB starters with a 5.9 H/9, and while he’s not Paul Skenes, he is a lock to at least receive some down-ballot Cy Young votes.
None of those 48 starts in the majors were complete games, though. Yamamoto flirted with a no-hitter in Baltimore in September, but he hadn’t gone the distance since his last NPB no-no in late 2023. It clearly wasn’t due to a lack of ability on Yamamoto’s end; the situation just rarely called for it. No one on the Dodgers had thrown a complete game all year.
October 2025 has ushered in new opportunities for Yamamoto. The Dodgers had an excellent bullpen when they won the 2024 World Series, but while they captured their 12th division title in 13 seasons this year, they did so with little confidence in their relief corps. As the Blue Jays demonstrated in Friday’s World Series opener, it’s their Achilles heel. Although Game 1 starter Blake Snell was ineffective across five innings, he might as well have been Sandy Koufax compared to the ‘pen — Emmett Sheehan and Anthony Banda got torched with Toronto riding a nine-run (!) fifth inning to an 11-4 victory.
The Dodgers’ status as favorites in this series was thus in jeopardy entering Game 2. Even the most optimistic Angeleno would not want to go down 0-2, with low odds of bringing the series back to Toronto. Fortunately for LA, they had Yamamoto going in Game 2, and he was riding the coattails of a throwback gem in his most recent start. Back in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, the capricious Dodger ‘pen nearly blew a sparkler from Snell, who had allowed one hit in eight shutout frames. (In fact, they were one Brice Turang twitch from at least guaranteeing extra innings).
The next day, Yamamoto was absolutely dealing in Milwaukee, so rather than potentially complicating matters, Roberts elected to keep the efficient righty in there for all nine. Andrew Vaughn swung through a Yamamoto splitter on his 111th pitch of the night to seal the 5-1 win for LA. It was a true rarity in the modern age, the first complete game from anyone in postseason play since Houston’s Justin Verlander eight years ago in the ALCS. One had to go back to “Lima Time” in 2004 to find a Dodger who had done it.
But could Yamamoto keep it going in the World Series? After all, Snell had been brilliant in the NLCS but was worn down by the dangerous Jays in Game 1. There was little margin for error, either, as Toronto got to deploy their ace, Kevin Gausman, in Game 2, as he had been slightly delayed in pitching due to his usage in ALCS Game 7 against Seattle.
This matchup turned into an old-fashioned pitchers duel. Through six full innings, it was a 1-1 ballgame. Gausman was stingy, shaking off a Freddie Freeman double and Will Smith single in the first that scored a run to send down the next 17 Dodgers in order.
Yamamoto allowed hits to the first two batters of the day, as George Springer doubled and Nathan Lukes flared a single to left. He kept Springer anchored on third by defying trends to fan Vladimir Guerrero Jr. before getting outs from Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho, who had both homered in Game 1. The Jays did get on the board in the third when Springer was plunked, Guerrero singled him to third, and Kirk’s sacrifice fly tied it up. Not to be outdone by Gausman, Yamamoto used that Kirk fly ball to begin a run of 20 consecutive Blue Jays retired — breaking a Dodger playoff record that dated all the way back 73 years ago to their days in Brooklyn.
This was no small feat, as Toronto has been a brutal offense for pitchers to face this October. Yamamoto made them look downright ugly, even late.
Note that 5-1 score, by the way. Gausman’s own fine game went by the wayside in the seventh, when Yamamoto’s batterymate Smith helped him out by snapping Gausman’s streak with a 404-foot bomb to left. That gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead, and Max Muncy made it 3-1 with an opposite-field shot two batters later.
The Dodgers tallied two more insurance runs in the eighth when Toronto’s own bullpen faltered, and Roberts kept calling Yamamoto’s number. Once again, his pitch count was in good shape and he’d held the opponent in one run in Game 2. So once again, he was allowed to go the distance.
No one had thrown a complete game in a World Series since the Royals’ Johnny Cueto a decade ago against the Mets. No one had thrown back-to-back complete games in a postseason since the Diamondbacks’ Curt Schilling in 2001, two years before Toronto’s Game 1 starter, Trey Yesavage, was even born.
How about one last fun fact cookie for Dodgers fans? The last LA starter to turn the back-to-back complete game trick was the beloved Orel Hershiser during the 1988 championship run. The Bulldog’s NL Cy Young Award-winning regular season had been highlighted by a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings, and he was money that October. Hershiser shut out the Mets in NLCS Game 7, came back on three days’ rest to do the same to the A’s the night after Kirk Gibson’s legendary World Series walk-off, and he even tossed a third consecutive complete game to nail down the title in Game 5 — again on short rest, securing World Series MVP honors.
Yamamoto won’t be asked to start again as soon as Hershiser did, so barring a surprise relief appearance, he won’t return until a possible Game 6. But he’ll clearly be ready to go for as long as Roberts needs him, bullpen be damned.
Who needs a shutdown closer when you have the complete-game power of Yoshi?
