Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave the Dodgers exactly the October start they needed, working seven innings and striking out 10 in a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves in NLDS Game 3. The victory left the Dodgers one game from the National League Championship Series.
The performance was his postseason high in strikeouts, and it came with almost no traffic. Yamamoto allowed one run on four hits, all of them singles, and Atlanta moved a runner beyond first base in only one inning. It was the kind of outing that turns a tight playoff game into a statement.
That is why the conversation around the Dodgers’ starting pitching has sharpened. Tarik Skubal said he expected Yamamoto to get the ball in the playoff opener, recalling that when Dave Roberts told him he would start, he asked, “Is Yoshi OK?” Skubal said he had assumed Yamamoto would be the Game 1 choice and added that he had a lot of respect for what he means in L.A. and what he has already accomplished there.
Skubal’s reaction fit the way Yamamoto is being viewed inside this October run: as a starter trusted in the biggest innings. The numbers back it up. He has a 2.14 ERA in 11 playoff appearances and a 1.42 ERA in six road playoff outings. Mookie Betts also shrugged off any surprise, saying he does not see it any different and that Yamamoto has been doing this all year, with so many weapons, so many strikes and so little room for hitters to breathe.
Skubal’s own October record explains why his opinion carries weight. He has a 1.97 earned-run average in seven postseason appearances, and five of his runs allowed have come in one inning against 44⅔ otherwise sturdy postseason innings. So when he says he assumed Yamamoto would start Game 1, it lands less as second-guessing than as a measure of how highly he rates the arm the Dodgers rode in Game 3.
For the Dodgers, the result matters now because it changed the series math immediately. One more win sends them to the National League Championship Series, and Yamamoto’s seven-inning, 10-strikeout outing gave them a clean path to that position. The unanswered question is the one that makes the opener discussion matter: whether Roberts chose the right starter when he went with Skubal instead of the pitcher who looked, in the biggest game so far, like the safest bet of all.
