LOS ANGELES -- It was abundantly clear early on that Yoshinobu Yamamoto would not be bidding for history on Saturday night against the Orioles at Dodger Stadium.
The possibility of a perfect game vanished when Yamamoto walked Pete Alonso with two outs in the first inning. He allowed his first hit not long after, a Leody Taveras single to lead off the second.
In the first two innings alone, Yamamoto allowed four baserunners, matching his total from his previous two starts combined. But while the Orioles challenged him more than any other opponent has lately, Yamamoto kept the Dodgers in the game, striking out six and allowing three earned runs across six innings in a 3-2 loss that set up a rubber game in Sunday afternoon's finale.
It marked the first time that Yamamoto allowed multiple runs in a start since May 12, when he gave up a season-high five to the Giants. He had been on a roll since then, but on Saturday, he struggled to find his feel for his splitter early. As a result, he had trouble putting hitters away.
"It's kind of really small things, very subtle in my delivery," Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. "Sometimes the ball moves quick. Sometimes it's a small movement. I was kind of looking for the right feel. That was the biggest struggle for me in today's game."
In his previous two starts, Yamamoto was on the cusp of history. He tied Mark Buehrle (2009) for the second-longest streak of consecutive batters retired in Major League history, one shy of Yusmeiro Petit's record (46 in 2014). He came four outs away from a perfect game and three outs away from a no-hitter last time out.
While Yamamoto has set lofty expectations for himself through his body of work, the Dodgers shouldn't need him to be close to perfect to be in position to win. L.A.'s pitching staff has been one of the best in the Majors this season, but there are times when the team has become overly reliant on the dominance of its pitching.
Before Saturday's loss, the Dodgers had won four straight games by one run despite not playing their best baseball. Manager Dave Roberts pointed primarily to his offense not producing to its capabilities.
"There’s times when you’ve got no margin and you’ve got to be perfect essentially," Roberts said Friday. "But there’s other times when as an offense you’ve got a chance to break a game open, and that needs to happen, too. That’s something we’ve got to do a better job at."
Saturday may have been more of a case where the Dodgers had little margin. It marked the first time that Yamamoto had faced the Orioles since he came one out away from no-hitting them last September in Baltimore. In the rematch, Yamamoto was much more hittable. The Orioles notched six hits off him, getting on the board with Coby Mayo's run-scoring fielder's choice in the second inning and adding on with Blaze Alexander's two-run double in the fourth.
"I thought the stuff was fine," Roberts said of Yamamoto. "He's going to go out there and be prepared, compete like he does. But it was just that you get count leverage and put 'em away with the split, and I just thought tonight he just didn't have that weapon."
Orioles starter Trevor Rogers, on the other hand, was close to untouchable. He didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning and allowed two other baserunners on a pair of walks across seven scoreless innings, facing two over the minimum.
Shohei Ohtani got the Dodgers on the board with a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the ninth, but a second straight walk-off win was not in the cards for L.A. despite a rally that put the tying and winning runs on base.
"What I can take from this game is the willingness to continue to fight throughout the whole game, have an opportunity to tie the game right there in the ninth with really good swings," Miguel Rojas said. "We got a couple other good swings in the seventh and the eighth, but the ball couldn't find the grass and we couldn't score any runs. But yeah, credit to Rogers today. He pitched a good game."
Hitless through four innings and scoreless through eight, the Dodgers didn't go away until the end. But in the end, they had to tip their caps to the visitors' dugout.