Inner Half

No Sunday Sandbox this week due to a busy Sunday. Do not fret, I’m back with it next Sunday and more standalone pieces this week. Today, I want to share a quick piece about the World Series MVP.

Dodgers take Game 7 in extras to break Canadians’ hearts

If there was any doubt that this World Series matchup would deliver for baseball, it has been put to rest. It took 7 games of utter chaos to crown the first repeat-champion since the Yankees at the turn of the century. The $509M Dodgers took it home in dramatic fashion.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the $325M man, had one of the greatest postseason runs a pitcher has ever put together.

His final stat line: 6 G (5 GS) — 37.1 IP, 1.45 ERA, 2.79 FIP, 3.33 xFIP, 22.9% K%, 4.2% BB%, 0.78 WHIP

He started his postseason with 6.2 innings of 4-hit baseball and no earned runs against the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card, before struggling a bit against the Phillies in Game 3 of the NLDS. In that game, he threw 4 IP, gave up 3 runs on 6 hits and a walk, only striking 2 out. Fear not because $325M doesn’t give you the right to think on your last start and let that affect your next one. Game 2 of the NLCS against Milwaukee was the first of Yoshi’s back-to-back complete game starts. Over the 9 innings of that NLCS Game 2, Yamamoto gave up one run on 3 hits and a walk, watching 7 walk back to the dugout on strikes.

Throwing a complete game in any context in today’s MLB is a really tough milestone. Yamamoto did it 2 starts in a row in the NLDS and the World Series.

In the second complete game against Toronto in the Fall Classic (and on 10 days rest), Yoshi gave up one run on 4 hits and no walks, sprinkling in 8 strikeouts.

That was Game 2. If you somehow didn’t hear about Game 3, you wouldn’t know that that game went 18 innings. That’s 2 baseball games. The Dodgers’ pitching staff was pushed to its absolute limits–so much so that Yamamoto (who had just thrown a complete game the day prior) decided to take it upon himself to warm up and give his team the best chance to win with him on the mound in the 19th inning. Thankfully, they didn’t have to do that when Freddie Freeman hit the walk-off bomb in the bottom of the 18th.

Yamamoto would start Game 6, go 6 innings and only giving up one run on 5 hits and a walk with 6 strikeouts. Finally, in the do-or-die Game 7 in Toronto, Yamamoto delivered one of the most legendary 2.2 IP in baseball history. Pitching the day after his last start (96 pitches), Yamamoto threw 34 pitches, only allowing 1 hit and closing the game for the best team in baseball. At the end of the day, Ohtani will be the face of this Dodger dynasty, but Yoshinobu Yamamoto is right up there with him, and he earned that MVP award in 2025.

There will no doubt be debates about Yamamoto’s contract for years to come. He’s signed through 2035, and will turn 30 many years before that. Pitchers do not age as gracefully as hitters in most cases, but for what Yamamoto has been able to do in his first two seasons in blue and white, who’s to say the contract was less than worth it? He’s certainly proven that this postseason run is no fluke. His regular season numbers prove that.

Who expected his 30-start, 173.2-inning, 2.49 ERA season to be a footnote in the greatness of the 2025 Dodgers? Not I. But he has been and will continue to be a key cog in the championship machine they have out there in LA.

In terms of the overall team, the Dodgers didn’t blow anyone away with their offense, except for Ohtani’s insane Game 3 (he reached base 9 times including 4 extra-base hits and 4 intentional walks). It was their starting pitching that was truly special. Obviously we talked about Yamamoto, but in terms of the team, Dodgers pitchers threw 104.0 IP. They played one less game than the Blue Jays, and Dodger starters threw 15 more IP than Toronto’s!

The concern with LA was always the bullpen. They were right to be concerned. The Dodgers’ relievers put up a 3.84 ERA (which is fine), but underlying numbers like 4.82 xERA, 4.28 FIP, and 5.12 xFIP tell us it should’ve been worse. So, the fact that their starters like Yoshi, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and even Ohtani, were able to prolong their outings was huge for their success.

Maybe I’ll do another piece on this Blue Jays team that was so fun to watch and was the team that I personally predicted to win it all before the postseason started. The Blue Jays have a large payroll (we’ll get into payroll talk soon), but they had a lot of guys that were given up on: Ernie Clement, Nathan Lukes, Gimenez, even Max Scherzer this year faced adversity at the end of the year. It was so fun to watch them play and battle each and every pitch. Bo Bichette and George Springer, despite both battling brutal injury, pushed that pain down and kept hacking at the plate. It was so cool, and to be candid, I’m really bummed that they didn’t win this Series, but such is baseball, and you don’t win until you win.