Dodgers' dreadful defense ruins much-needed dominant Yoshinobu Yamamoto return

On Tuesday night, the Dodgers and Cubs put on a potential preview for next season's Tokyo Series. Shōta Imanaga, who pitched seven innings of a combined no-hitter in his last appearance for the Cubs, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, fresh off the IL after almost three months on it, went head-to-head in a pitchers' duel. With Seiya Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani in the Cubs' and Dodgers' lineups, it marked the just the second time in baseball history four Japanese-born players have met in a game.

All eyes were on Yamamoto, who the Dodgers hope will be a linchpin of the postseason rotation, if not its ace. He was on a pitch count of about 60 pitches, but with the way he performed, fans would've liked to see him go a lot longer.

He took the top of the Cubs' order down 1-2-3 to start, the first on a devastating curveball that spent the entire night making Chicago's hitters look like they'd seen a ghost. Velocity wasn't an issue, either; in that first inning, his fastball was getting close to 98 MPH and ended up sitting around 96 through the rest of his start.

By the time the Dodgers pulled him, Yamamoto pitched four innings and gave up just one run while striking out eight batters.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto's stellar return after almost three months on the IL was better than the Dodgers could've hoped

By the time they pulled Yamamoto, the Dodgers had a one-run lead thanks to a two-homer night for Tommy Edman, who really tapped into his old Cardinal instincts in his first series against his old rivals since being traded from St. Louis at the deadline. They were Edman's first two homers of the year, and they came off of one of the best pitchers in the National League this season.

Max Muncy tacked on a run with a homer of his own in the bottom of the fifth, and the Dodgers bullpen got through the sixth and seventh without a scratch.

The top of the eighth, though, was a calamity that featured three errors from the Dodgers defense and an intentional walk en route to a four-run Cubs lead that LA wouldn't be able to overcome through their turns in the eighth and ninth. Muncy made a valiant attempt at getting the game within one in the bottom of the ninth, sending a fly ball to deep center field with Miguel Rojas on third, but Pete Crow-Armstrong made a fantastic, game-ending catch at the wall to wrap it up. One team played defense in clutch time, the other decidedly did not.

While it was one of the Dodgers' most embarrassing loses of the year, that shouldn't distract from Yamamoto's return and what a sigh of relief it'll allow LA to take. Even if Tyler Glasnow can't return for the postseason, the Dodgers have a bonafide ace to go into October with.