ATLANTA — Yoshinobu Yamamoto will carry the Dodgers’ most reliable October arm into Tuesday night’s National League Division Series Game 3 at Truist Park. Against Atlanta left-hander Chris Sale, Los Angeles will ask the Japanese right-hander to deliver the calm, deep outing that became routine during a season when the rotation kept losing bodies.
Quick facts
- NLDS Game 3 is Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET, with FS1, FOX Deportes and FOX One carrying the broadcast.
- Yamamoto led the Dodgers with 28 starts in 2026.
- He finished the regular season with a 2.53 ERA, 182 strikeouts and 185 innings.
- Sale and Yamamoto last faced one another on Aug. 27 in Atlanta’s 1-0 win.
- Sale threw a 109-pitch shutout that day; Yamamoto allowed one run in 6 1/3 innings, striking out eight and walking one.
The Dodgers needed that steadiness. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Justin Wrobleski, Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Eric Lauer all spent time on the injured list, leaving Yamamoto as the rotation’s regular source of length.
Manager Dave Roberts said dependable players are the ones every club wants more of, and he placed Yamamoto squarely in that category. Roberts said the right-hander had only one or two rough outings, while most of his work brought at least six innings and a predictable standard.
“When the moments get big, he certainly rises to those occasions,” Roberts said. He added that Yamamoto takes responsibility for his teammates and understands that he is often the club’s best choice, calling him one of baseball’s more overlooked pitchers.
That confidence extends to the infield. Freddie Freeman said he recognized Yamamoto’s unusual combination of stuff, command and mound presence from the first live batting practice he saw against him.
“Nothing’s too big for him,” Freeman said. “It feels like he can put the ball wherever he wants, and we are very confident whenever he goes out there.”
Yamamoto has already shown that October does not rattle him. During the Dodgers’ 2025 championship run, he was voted World Series MVP after becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to earn three victories in one Fall Classic.
He was the 14th pitcher in Major League history to do it, and the final image of that Series came with Yamamoto working 2 2/3 scoreless relief innings in Game 7 without a day off between appearances.
Tuesday offers another demanding assignment. Sale arrives after blanking the Dodgers in their late-August meeting, and Atlanta will be leaning on the same ace who needed 109 pitches to finish that shutout.
Yamamoto did not lose much ground in that pitchers’ duel. One Atlanta run was all that reached the board against him over 6 1/3 innings, but the Dodgers could not solve Sale. Now, with the Division Series shifting to Atlanta, Yamamoto gets another chance to turn a narrow-season memory into an October answer.
