The Athletic has live coverage of Dodgers vs. Blue Jays in Game 6 of the 2025 World Series.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ season and the last gasp of hope for cementing a dynasty now rests in the hands of Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The assignment of saving a team billed as a juggernaut but now facing the end of its season is the kind that forges legacies and can break wills, the kind of pressure that buries you if you let it. It should not be all up to Yamamoto, though a combustible bullpen and dormant lineup have made it so.

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The Dodgers can still believe in Game 6 of the World Series, because they have Yamamoto.

“The right guy,” outfielder Kiké Hernández said, “at the right time.”

Rarely has a pitcher questioned for his lack of height stood as tall as Yamamoto has this October, when the 5-foot-10 starter became the first Dodgers pitcher since Orel Hershiser in 1988 to throw consecutive complete games in the postseason.

But his track record of clutch moments extends far beyond this fall. Yamamoto was a postseason ace in Japan first, and that ability needed no translation in the big leagues.

“He’s pitched in huge ballgames in Japan,” manager Dave Roberts said recently. “He’s pitched in the WBC. Players that have the weight of a country on their shoulders – that’s pressure.”

Kiké Hernández said of Yamamoto: ‘You’re not supposed to keep getting be