TORONTO -- Yoshinobu Yamamoto came into the 2025 World Series as one of the most accomplished active players in baseball, having won championships in Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball and gold medals in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic.
But it was two starts and a relief appearance on zero days' rest last Fall Classic that truly cemented Yamamoto's status as a legend in the eyes of the Dodgers.
"This guy's a winner, and he's shown that he'll do whatever it takes to win," manager Dave Roberts said before Tuesday night's 4-1 win over the Blue Jays. "That’s part of his DNA."
Blue Jays fans let Yamamoto know that they remembered what he did to their team when his name was called ahead of the contest, welcoming him back to Rogers Centre with a chorus of boos. And in his return to the mound where he earned World Series MVP honors, Yamamoto put on a strong encore performance that helped the Dodgers extend their winning streak to five games.
"I'm just gonna keep doing what I've been doing," Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. "And then I'm gonna just take one outing at a time, and then I believe that's going to get me better."
Opposing Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman in a rematch of Games 2 and 6, Yamamoto again outdueled his counterpart on the mound, striking out six across six-plus innings of one-run ball and allowing five hits and one walk.
Yamamoto had tossed quality starts in each of his first two outings of 2026, but he lacked some sharpness. He said he felt better on Tuesday, albeit a little off when pitching from the stretch.
Fortunately for him, he had few reasons to deviate from the windup in his first five innings.
In his first inning, Yamamoto struck out the side on 11 pitches, making quick work of George Springer, Daulton Varsho and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He gave up a knock to lead off the second, with right fielder Kyle Tucker struggling to get a read on a Jesús Sánchez fly ball that dropped over his head for a double.
Yamamoto appeared undeterred by having a runner in scoring position. He retired his next 12 batters in a row, a streak that ended when Andrés Giménez singled to lead off the sixth inning. Two batters later, Yamamoto gave up an RBI double to Springer and followed by walking Varsho, giving the Blue Jays their best chance against him that evening.
But Yamamoto was able to take care of business, getting a pair of grounders from Guerrero and Sánchez to get out of the jam with just the one run allowed. He came out for the seventh inning but did not record an out, leaving runners on the corners for Alex Vesia. Vesia walked the bases loaded -- putting the go-ahead run aboard -- but managed to get out of the inning cleanly.
"One pitch at a time," Vesia said. "That was a great, great win all in all. Yam is the man, and it was nice to get out of that inning without allowing a run for him."
For all the fanfare that built around a matchup between two teams who last met in the World Series, both the Dodgers and the Blue Jays have seemingly been content to let the past be the past and focus solely on the present.
Even Yamamoto being back on the mound where he won three games in the span of seven days didn't evoke memories of the back-to-back championship run.
"I did feel good about him on this particular mound. But I really wasn’t thinking about the World Series," Roberts said. "I was more thinking about how he was going to navigate. You could see how aggressive they were, and I saw early how good his stuff was."
The Blue Jays got a lot of exposure to Yamamoto during the World Series, but he had all six pitches in his bag working for him on Tuesday, mixing and matching to keep his opponents off balance for much of the evening.
"As I faced them more," Yamamoto said, "I was trying to get my pitch mix and plan better."
Last fall, the Dodgers returned to Toronto with their backs against the wall, needing to win Games 6 and 7 on the road to become back-to-back champions. This year, they've put themselves in position for a three-game sweep against the World Series runners-up to keep their hot start to the three-peat bid in motion.