Yamamoto, Dodgers flip World Series script by exposing Blue Jays' overlooked flaw

The Dodgers needed to make a statement coming out of a mortifying Game 1 of the World Series, when the Blue Jays finally got to a Dodgers starter and exposed LA's bullpen. It was Dodgers' fans biggest fear for the postseason, manifested. Emmet Sheehan and Anthony Banda gave up nine runs (though three were put on Blake Snell's tab) in one awful sixth inning.

In Game 2, the Dodgers scored in the first once again, with a Freddie Freeman double then Will Smith single off of Toronto starter Kevin Gausman. Yoshinobu Yamamoto seemed to shake a little in the early going, but after giving up a run on a sac fly, he and Gausman were mowing down their opposing lineups.

The game was still tied at one apiece going into the seventh, until Smith broke the ice with a solo homer, his first of the postseason, and Muncy followed in the same inning to get Gausman booted from the game.

The Dodgers still weren't safe by any means, given the danger all over the Blue Jays' lineup, but the failure of LA's bullpen in Game 1 drowned out the fact that Toronto's biggest weakness in the postseason has also been their bullpen. They had a 5.52 ERA in 11 postseason games going into the World Series.

Louis Varland, who came in behind Gausman, reminded everyone of that.

Dodgers capitalize on Blue Jays' weak bullpen in support of another unbelievable complete game for Yoshinobu Yamamoto

The bases were loaded for the Dodgers in the eighth after an Andy Pages single, Shohei Ohtani single, and a walk for Mookie Betts to load the bases with one out. Jeff Hoffman came into a dirty inning and threw a wild pitch to Freddie Freeman to bring Pages in. Smith picked up his third RBI of the night with a groundout to score Ohtani. All three runs went onto Varland's ledger.

Meanwhile Yamamoto, nine days removed from his complete game against the Brewers in the NLCS, was (almost) perfect again. Apart from the sac fly to Kirk, he barely flinched against the Blue Jays' offense and was at just 89 pitches coming out of the eighth. There was no way Dave Roberts was going to take him out and leave the Dodgers open to another breakdown.

Yamamoto didn't disappoint. He came in for the ninth and made throwing two back-to-back complete games look easy when he took the top of the Blue Jays' lineup down in order. Absolutely ridiculous. He's the first pitcher to throw two consecutive complete games in the postseason since Curt Schilling in 2001.

And the Dodgers are heading back to LA with the series knotted because of it.