The Dodgers scored nine runs in the first inning. Yamamoto then threw eight more innings of near-perfect baseball. The final score was 9-2 and the game was functionally over before most people finished their first beer. None of that is the interesting part.

The interesting part is what Yamamoto did after the first inning ended: he walked nobody. Not one batter. Eight innings, 2 hits, 4 strikeouts, 93 pitches, and a walk rate of exactly zero.

The 2023 Dodger bullpen was built around a walk rate of 2.57 BB/9 — three-quarters of a walk per nine innings below league average. That philosophy produced a home run per fly ball rate of .072, or 37% below league average. The 2026 bullpen has not consistently matched that profile. On Saturday Yamamoto showed what that discipline looks like from one arm. Eight innings, 93 pitches, zero walks. One arm doing it right makes the gap more visible, not less.

Worth Remembering

Andy Pages hit a two-run homer in the first inning to break the game open. Ohtani had just singled to lead off against Kochanowicz, and Pages took the next pitch out to center. Win probability jumped 16.5 points on that swing — the single biggest offensive play of the game. It was Pages’s second RBI of the night and the moment the Angels stopped having a plan.

Ohtani added a two-run homer of his own two batters later to make it 7-1. At that point the leverage index for every remaining plate appearance in the game dropped below 0.25. The Dodgers were done scoring. Yamamoto was just getting warmed up.

Worth Forgetting

The Dodgers scored nine runs on nine hits and left the bases loaded twice in the first inning alone. Alex Call struck out swinging with two on and one out. Ryan Ward struck out later in the same inning with two on and two out. Nine runs on nine hits with two strikeouts in the same frame with the bases loaded multiple times is not clean. It works, but it is not clean.

Where It All Went Wrong

It did not. The Dodgers won by seven. But the one moment LAA had anything going was Oswald Peraza’s first-inning triple off Yamamoto with two outs and a runner on first. That scored Meckler and gave the Angels a 1-0 lead for approximately four minutes. Win probability swung 11.4 points in LAA’s favor. It was the only leverage play of any consequence all game and it lasted one half-inning.

Yamamoto retired the next 21 Angels in order before Dreyer came on in the ninth.

Up Next

The Dodgers close out the Angels series Sunday June 7 at 1:10 PM PST at Dodger Stadium. Starters are José Soriano for the Angels and Emmet Sheehan for the Dodgers.