right-hander nearly made history Saturday afternoon in Chicago’s Rate Field against the . He had a perfect game through 7 ⅔ innings and then a no-hitter through eight innings. He gave up a home run to White Sox’s center fielder Triston Peters to lead off the ninth inning to break up his no-hitter and shutout bids in one fell swoop. The Dodgers won, , behind the amazing Yamamoto effort.
The blast took Dodgers shortstop off the hook. Yamamoto was working toward the 25th perfect game in history with two outs in the eighth inning when a weak grounder to Betts was botched with an error.
Betts could be seen hanging his head a bit in the dugout after the third out of the inning, and Yamamoto patted him on the butt as if to say “don’t worry about it.”
The final line for Yamamoto after the late dramatics: 8 ⅓ IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 7 K.
A standing ovation for Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Yamamoto put on an absolute clinic with his command. Whether he wanted to put the ball on the outside or inside corner, he just didn’t miss spots. He was around and inside the strike zone all game. There were seven hard-hit balls in play before the ninth. Obviously, unless you’re gonna strike every single hitter out, a pitcher needs some batted-ball luck in order to work toward a no-hitter. Examples like ‘ hard liner right at left fielder in the seventh inning or ‘s scorcher right at to lead off the eighth stand out. It really looked like those would be the last close calls.
Yamamoto just came oh-so close.
This wasn’t a fluky outing by any stretch. Yamamoto totally dominated like we’ve seen him do before — just a bit better this time around. He entered the game with a 2.68 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, and remember, he was the World Series MVP last year. He’s all kinds of locked in right now, as he had a 0.99 ERA in his last four starts heading into this game.
There have only been 24 perfect games in MLB history. The most recent came in 2023 when Domingo Germán of the pulled off the feat. The only perfect game in Dodgers history came from, naturally, Sandy Koufax on Sept. 9, 1965. Yamamoto ends up coming painfully close — just four outs away, and it wasn’t even his fault.
Also, the Dodgers have thrown 26 no-hitters in club history. They are the MLB leader by a pretty decent margin, as the White Sox are second with 20. The most recent Dodgers no-hitter came in 2018 and was a combined job by , , Yimi García and . The most recent Dodgers no-hitter by an individual came back in 2014 with . He didn’t walk anyone, either, as only an error prevented his game from perfection.
Heading toward the ninth, it looked like Yamamoto was going to repeat the feat, but it wasn’t meant to be. Peters came through for the White Sox to avoid dubious history.
Regardless, Yamamoto was the big star on Saturday in Chicago.
