Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Spare a thought for any New York Rangers fans in your life. After their 2–0 loss to the Oilers last night, they’re the first team in NHL history to get shut out in their first three home games of a season. 

In today’s SI:AM: 
⚾ Yamamoto shines for Dodgers
🏀 Big East preview
🏈 Drake Maye’s sophomore jump

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Getting closer to a repeat

The Dodgers are headed back to Los Angeles with a 2–0 series lead over the Brewers, thanks mostly to two starting pitchers. 

After Blake Snell mowed through the Milwaukee lineup in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto did the same in Game 2 on Tuesday night as the Dodgers won 5–1. 

Yamamoto became the first pitcher since Justin Verlander in 2017 to throw a complete game in the postseason, allowing one run on three hits with seven strikeouts and a walk. The lone run came on a solo homer by Jackson Chourio leading off the bottom of the first. Yamamoto didn’t allow a hit after the fourth inning and retired the final 14 batters of the game. 

“That was the first hitter,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter, reflecting on Chourio’s homer. “And I feel regrettable, that home run, but I reset my mind and then I just focused on executing my own pitches.”

It was Yamamoto’s first complete game as a Dodger (he had thrown 14 in Japan, including eight shutouts) and the first by a Dodgers pitcher in the postseason since José Lima in 2004. No Dodgers pitcher threw a complete game in the regular season this year, which makes them the first team in MLB history to throw their first nine-inning complete game of the season in the playoffs, according to MLB.com. (Marco Estrada threw an eight-inning complete game in a loss for the Blue Jays in 2016 after no Toronto pitcher went the distance in the regular season.)

The Dodgers have benefited greatly from some excellent starting pitching in this postseason. Yamamoto was chased from Game 3 of the NLDS against the Phillies after completing just four innings, but in each of the Dodgers’ other seven games this season, the starter has gone at least six innings. It’s the first time since the 2013 Tigers that a team has had its starters pitch at least six innings in seven of their first eight postseason games, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs. 

Combine Snell and Yamamoto’s stellar outings with Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler’s outstanding performance in Game 3 against the Red Sox two weeks ago and you can see we’re enjoying a mini-renaissance of starting pitching in these playoffs. The trend over the past decade or so has been that starters are getting pulled from games earlier and earlier. All the numbers say it’s a smart strategy, but it’s still frustrating as a fan not to have the central figures of the game play a larger role. 

This year has been different, though. Three pitchers have already had starts of at least eight innings, and we’re only two games into the LCS round. It’s the first time that has happened since 2016, when six starters went at least eight innings. Now, it would be silly to chalk that up to some kind of leaguewide change in tactics. Managers aren’t suddenly eschewing analytics and leaving pitchers out there to wear out their arms. But it’s still a fun indicator of how good the pitching has been this postseason. 

Snell, Yamamoto and Schlittler had headline-worthy outings, but there’s also been a more subtle difference in pitcher usage this postseason. There have been 33 games played thus far this postseason (66 starting pitchers) and 20 pitchers have completed at least six innings. That’s 30.3% of all starts. We’ve already eclipsed the number of six-inning starts from last year’s playoffs (19). In 2024, 22.1% of postseason starts were at least six innings, and in ’23 it was 28.0%. Much of this year’s increase can be attributed to the Dodgers (Los Angeles pitchers have accounted for seven of the 20 starts of at least six innings) and is apparently a result of Dave Roberts trusting his accomplished starters more than his beleaguered bullpen. So don’t expect to see a bunch of 1990s-style ironmen on the mound in the playoffs next year. But if you’re a fan of starting pitching, this postseason has been a dream. 

The best of Sports Illustrated

Drake Maye and Stefon Diggs interviewed after a game
Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 
5. A great touchdown catch by New Mexico State’s Brodie Malone-Bradford.
4. Max Muncy’s 14th career postseason homer, the most in Dodgers franchise history.
3. A sweet backhand goal by the Canadiens’ Ivan Demidov. 
2. Jackson Chourio’s leadoff homer. 
1. A 96-yard kickoff return by Liberty’s Julian Gray.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Starting Pitchers Are Having a Moment.