Dodgers 7, Guardians 2: Yamamoto delivers again, Shohei starts things with a bang

Chad Moriyama 05/26/2025 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

Coming off dropping a series to the Mets, the Dodgers desperately needed to win the opener against the Guardians with their ace on the mound, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivered for them again. Fortunately, the bats also gave him an unusual amount of run support and they were able to cruise to a 7-2 victory.

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There was a bit of deja vu for the Dodgers to start the game, as Shohei Ohtani led the game off with a homer yet again, this time smashing his 19th homer on the first pitch off Gavin Williams for a 1-0 lead.

The lineup then put together a rally in the 2nd, as Will Smith drew a lead-off walk, advanced to second on a Williams balk, got to third on a productive Max Muncy groundout, and scored on an Andy Pages single that made it 2-0.

After a walk the Dodgers had a pair on, but they couldn’t take advantage of that chance to extend the lead in the 2nd. They then got just a one-out single in the 3rd and a one-out walk in the 4th.

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On the other end, Yoshinobu Yamamoto started looking like he had his best stuff, retiring the first six batters and striking out four of them.

The 3rd started with a surprising walk, and a single followed to put Yamamoto in trouble. A sacrifice bunt followed, but it was looking like an infield single until Yamamoto swooped in with an amazing defensive play to get the out.

While the Guardians got a run in the inning on a groundout, Yamamoto himself prevented the big inning and kept things at 2-1.

He also found some trouble in the 4th after a one-out Hyeseong Kim error, a wild pitch, and a walk, but a double play helped him navigate that traffic.

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Meanwhile, Williams was still in the game for the 5th, and man did he have a long one. A lead-off walk to Shohei and a one-out walk to Freddie Freeman put a pair on, which Teoscar Hernandez took advantage of with a long single one-hopping the wall in left to make it 3-1.

After a Will walk loaded the bases, Muncy worked a long at-bat and hit a sac fly to make it 4-1 and knock Williams out of the game. He threw 41 pitches in the 5th to get just two outs.

I dunno what happened after the reliever entered, but with the runners cornered, the rally ended when Smith got picked off.

Anyway, things resumed in the 6th when Michael Conforto drew a one-out walk and Shohei drew a two-out walk. That was followed by back-to-back singles from Mookie Betts and Freddie that pushed the lead to 6-1.

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Back to Yamamoto, he cruised through a seven-pitch 5th, and then got the first two in the 6th on strikeouts. However, Teoscar played a ball brutally that fell in for a “double”, and a single followed to charge Yamamoto with a second run and maybe cost him another inning.

Regardless, he was sharp yet again: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 88 Pitches.

In relief was Alex Vesia in the 7th, and while he got in trouble with a double and walk, he worked around it for a scoreless outing, even it took 23 pitches.

Tanner Scott followed in the 8th, giving up a missile double on an 0-2 count but managing to work around it at least.

While it didn’t look like any insurance would be provided for the pen, as the Dodgers followed a lead-off single in the 7th with eight in a row retired, Will drilled his fifth homer of the year in the 9th to make it 7-2.

To close things out was Luis Garcia in the 9th, who gave up just an “infield single” (Mookie couldn’t make a play) to end it.

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NL WestRecordGB
Dodgers33-21–
Giants31-232.0
Padres29-22*2.5

The series continues tomorrow at the same place and same time of 12:10 PM HT/3:10 PM PT/6:10 PM ET, with Dustin May looking to repeat his last start, and he’ll be facing Tanner Bibee.

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