Magical Yoshinobu Yamamoto inning vs. Reds gave Dodgers the playoff hope they needed

Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been not only the Dodgers' only completely healthy starter in 2025, he's also been by far their best. He closed his regular season with a 2.49 ERA in 173 2/3 innings and was basically unhittable throughout September, posting a 0.67 ERA in four starts.

However, there were early signs of struggle in his first postseason start of the year. Game 1 of the Wild Card series against the Reds was (mostly) a cakewalk, but Cincinnati put up two runs almost immediately. Yamamoto's command was a little shaky, and he hit his second batter before a Teoscar Hernández error put two runners in scoring position for Reds rookie Sal Stewart to bring in.

The Dodgers answered with a Mookie Betts RBI single in the third, back-to-back RBI for Kiké Hernández and Miguel Rojas in the fourth to take the lead, and then a four-run bottom of the sixth.

But Yamamoto got into some trouble just the frame before, when he gave up three singles in a row to load the bases with no outs. But the Dodgers' ace wriggled his way out of the jam with a grounder to get a force out at home, and then two swinging strikeouts to escape trouble unscathed. The Dodgers' offense repaid him with that four-run inning.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto's stellar start against Reds to help Dodgers in pursuit of Wild Card sweep solidified his status as ace

He was pulled with two outs in the seventh after giving up two walks, but his fantastic effort and the Dodgers' actually managing to come through for him gave fans some reassurance that the bullpen would have to work incredibly hard to mess this one up. That isn't unheard of (let's not talk about Yamamoto's lost no-hitter again), but Blake Treinen managed to get out of the seventh on just two pitches, so that was a good place to start.

The Dodgers have failed to provide run support to Yamamoto basically all season, but they gave him a season-high eight runs in his final regular season start against the Diamondbacks and their seven runs on Tuesday night falls in right behind.

Out of all four Wild Card series, the Dodgers have scored more runs than any other team by far. Although this is the No. 6 seed they're picking on, it still feels good.

And it doesn't even stop with Yamamoto. He and Blake Snell gave LA two outstanding starts, but Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow are all still on deck.