Milwaukee – Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a three-hitter for the first postseason complete game in eight years as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1 on Tuesday night to take a commanding lead in the National League Championship Series.

Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy each hit a solo homer as the Dodgers left Milwaukee with a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series, which shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Thursday. Muncy’s 412-foot drive to center field was the 14th homer of his postseason career, breaking the Dodgers record he had shared with Corey Seager and Justin Turner.

Yamamoto allowed a home run to Jackson Chourio on the first of his 111 pitches but shut down the Brewers the rest of the way. The right-hander’s complete game was his first in the majors and the first in the postseason since Justin Verlander did it for Houston against the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS.

The last Dodgers pitcher to throw complete game in the postseason was Jose Lima against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of the 2004 NL Division Series.

This is the first time since 1970 that both LCS road teams started 2-0. The Seattle Mariners own a 2-0 lead in the ALCS heading into Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle.

Twenty-four of the previous 27 teams that took the first two games on the road in a best-of-seven series with a 2-3-2 format have gone on to win. The three teams to come back after losing Games 1 and 2 at home all came in World Series: the 1985 Kansas City Royals against the St. Louis Cardinals, the 1986 New York Mets against the Boston Red Sox, and the 1996 New York Yankees against the Atlanta Braves.

The Brewers pulled out all the stops Tuesday as they tried to avoid that 2-0 deficit. Former Milwaukee slugger Eric Thames got on the field to exhort fans just before the game and popped open his jersey to reveal his bare chest.

The 21-year-old Chourio then delighted a sellout crowd by sending Yamamoto’s first pitch over the wall in right-center field for his fourth career postseason homer, tying Orlando Arcia and Prince Fielder for the Brewers record.

That seemed like a foreboding start for Yamamoto, who lasted just two-thirds of an inning in an 8-1 loss the previous time he pitched in Milwaukee. But he bounced back and silenced the Brewers the rest of the way.

The Brewers have five hits in the series. Los Angeles left-hander Blake Snell limited them to one hit and no walks over eight innings in the Dodgers’ 2-1 Game 1 victory.

Los Angeles became the first team to have consecutive postseason starts of at least eight innings in the same series since San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum did it in Games 4 and 5 of the 2010 World Series against Texas.

After Chourio’s homer, Los Angeles wasted no time coming back against Brewers ace Freddy Peralta.

Hernández, whose baserunning mistake contributed to the Brewers’ unusual 8-6-2 double play in Game 1, sent a 3-2 curve over the left-field wall for his fourth homer of this postseason. Two outs later, Kiké Hernández singled and scored on Andy Pages’ double.

Pages had been 1 for 27 in the postseason before delivering his shot into the right-field corner.

Muncy extended the lead to 3-1 with his two-out homer in the sixth, which came on Peralta’s 97th and final pitch of the night. The Dodgers added two more runs on RBI singles by Shohei Ohtani in the seventh and Tommy Edman in the eighth.

Mariners in ALCS driver’s seat

Seattle – With his team holding a 2-0 lead over Toronto in the American League Championship Series after winning twice on the road, Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson wasn’t about to belabor the obvious.

“It’s a very advantageous position,” Wilson said Tuesday. “We’re excited about that. But there’s work to do here.”

That starts with Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle, where the Mariners can clinch their first AL pennant by winning two of three potential home games. Seattle is the only major league team that’s never reached the World Series.

Much went right for the Mariners in Toronto: right-hander Bryce Miller was excellent on short rest in Game 1, and Seattle’s bats sprung to life in Game 2. Stellar starting pitching and clutch hitting have been hallmarks of this Mariners squad that became just the fourth in franchise history to win the AL West.

Both characteristics have caused difficulty for the Blue Jays, who initially appeared to have the early advantage going into this series considering the Mariners needed to outlast the Detroit Tigers in 15 innings to win their AL Division Series in a 4-hour, 58-minute Game 5 thriller. Rather than arriving sluggish in Toronto, the Mariners came out firing, which hardly surprised Blue Jays reliever Jeff Hoffman.

“I think when teams are kind of up against it like that,” Hoffman said, “where they have had some things that they can’t control kind of happen and it affects their arrival time and all that, it affects their sleep – you do see teams rise to the occasion.”

Now, it’s the Blue Jays’ turn to go against the grain. They will start 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber on Wednesday, then trot out three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer for Game 4 in an effort to reverse the tide.

The Mariners, meanwhile, will turn to right-handers George Kirby and Luis Castillo in Games 3 and 4, both of whom played prominent roles in closing out the ALDS. Even so, Blue Jays manager John Schneider is confident his AL East champions can bounce back.

“I like our chances really any day, anywhere, against anyone,” Schneider said. “I think (the) off day was good for us today to kind of reset. I think the guys are going to come out knowing exactly what they have to do.”

What the Blue Jays have to do, of course, is defy historical precedent. Of the 27 teams that lost the first two games at home in a best-of-seven postseason series with a 2-3-2 format, only three have rallied to win: the 1985 Kansas City Royals, the 1986 New York Mets and the 1996 New York Yankees – all in the World Series.

Hoffman found himself on the wrong side of a comeback in 2023 with the Philadelphia Phillies, as the Arizona Diamondbacks stormed back from an 0-2 deficit to win the NL Championship Series.

“They totally just zeroed out our offense at that time,” Hoffman said. “We were chasing at an unbelievable rate and they used that to their advantage. They didn’t throw us any strikes, and they won those games, and they did what they had to do to get to the World Series.”

The Blue Jays certainly have the disciplined bats to make it a competitive series. Four different Toronto players smacked at least 20 home runs in the regular season. Three of them – Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and Daulton Varsho – have gone deep twice in the postseason.

“The series is not over until it’s over,” Hoffman said. “We’ve just got to go out and play our game and focus on the now and execute our game plan, and we’ll be in a pretty good spot.”

Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, on the ALCS roster after missing the Division Series against the Yankees with pectoral tightness, is eager to make his postseason debut – whenever that may be. Even with Seattle closing in on its first World Series appearance, Woo couldn’t help but second Hoffman’s assessment.

“I think everybody knows that we still have a job to do,” Woo said. “This series is long from over.”

Scherzer to start Game 4

Seattle – Three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer will start Game 4 of the American League Championship Series for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Seattle Mariners.

Scherzer was activated after being left off the roster for the Division Series against the New York Yankees and is slated to make his 26th postseason start and 31st appearance. The 41-year-old right-hander is 0-3 over his last eight postseason starts since the 2019 World Series opener, and went 1-3 with a 9.00 ERA in his final six starts of the 2025 season.

Manager John Schneider said Sunday that neck pain limited Scherzer at the end of the season and that he is in a better spot physically than a month ago. Opting to use the eight-time All-Star as a starter stemmed from wanting to keep Scherzer’s routine consistent.

“I’ve talked about him preparing all year,” Schneider said Tuesday, a day before the matchup resumes with Toronto trying to overcome a 2-0 series deficit. “So I think keeping things normal for him. Going back to you want to see normalcy. So you trust that he’s going to be prepared and go out and give everything he has and hopefully rise to the occasion of a big moment. He’s a Hall of Famer for a reason. So you feel good about handing him the ball and watching him go to work.”

An eight-time All-Star, Scherzer was 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA in 17 starts after agreeing to a $15.5 million, one-year contract. He didn’t pitch between March 29 and June 25 because of right thumb inflammation.

MLB qualifying offer price rises

New York – The price of a qualifying offer for this year’s major league free agents rose 4.6% to $22,025,000 from $21.05 million.

The figure is determined by the average of the top 125 major league contracts this year. The price dropped by $100,000 to $17.8 million in 2019, then rose to $18.9 million in 2020, fell $500,000 in 2021 and rose to $19.65 million in 2022 and $20,325,000 in 2023.

Qualifying offers began after the 2012 season, and only 14 of 144 offers have been accepted.

A free agent can be made a qualifying offer only if he has been with the same team continuously since opening day and has never received a qualifying offer before.

Among the top players who can become free agents after the World Series and are eligible to receive qualifying offers are Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette, New York Yankees outfielder Trent Grisham, San Diego right-hander Michael King, Philadelphia designated hitter Kyle Schwarber and left-hander Ranger Suárez, San Diego right-hander Robert Suarez, and Chicago Cubs outfielder Kyle Tucker.

Potential free agents ineligible for qualifying offers include New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger, Boston third baseman Alex Bregman, Cincinnati pitcher Nick Martinez and Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto.

A qualifying offer can be made through the fifth day after the World Series, and a player has a week after that to accept.

If a team makes a qualifying offer to a player who signs a major league contract with another club before the amateur draft, his former club would receive a draft pick as compensation at the end of the first round or at the end of competitive balance round B. The placement depends on the amount of the new contract and the revenue-sharing and luxury tax status of the team losing the player.

Qualifying offers began at $13.3 million. The players who accepted are Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters, Houston outfielder Colby Rasmus and Dodgers left-hander Brett Anderson ($15.8 million for 2016); Mets second baseman Neil Walker and Philadelphia right-hander Jeremy Hellickson ($17.2 million for 2017); Dodgers left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu ($17.9 million for 2019); Chicago White Sox first baseman José Abreu and Minnesota right-hander Jake Odorizzi ($17.8 million for 2020); San Francisco right-hander Kevin Gausman and Mets right-hander Marcus Stroman ($18.9 million for 2021); Giants first baseman Brandon Belt ($18.4 million for 2022; Texas left-hander Martín Pérez and Giants outfielder Joc Pederson ($19.65 million for 2023); and Martinez ($21.05 million for 2025).

Division SeriesAmerican League (ALCS)

(Seattle 2, Toronto 0)

Sunday, Oct. 12: Seattle 3, Toronto 1

Monday, Oct. 13: Seattle 10, Toronto 3

Wednesday, Oct. 15: Toronto (Bieber 4-2) at Seattle (Kirby 10-8), 8:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1)

Thursday, Oct. 16: Toronto at Seattle (Castillo 11-8), 8:33 p.m. (FOX/FS1)

x-Friday, Oct. 17: Toronto at Seattle, 6:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1)

x-Sunday, Oct. 19: Seattle at Toronto, 8:03 p.m. (FOX/FS1)

x-Monday, Oct. 20: Seattle at Toronto, 8:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1)

National League (NLCS)

(Los Angeles 2, Milwaukee 0)

Monday: Los Angeles 2, Milwaukee 1

Tuesday: Los Angeles 5, Milwaukee 1

Thursday: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 6:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

Friday: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 8:38 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Saturday, Oct. 18: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 8:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Monday, Oct. 20: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 5:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Tuesday, Oct. 21: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 8:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

World Series

(Best-of-7, FOX)

Friday, Oct. 24: TBA

Saturday, Oct. 25: TBA

Monday, Oct. 27: TBA

Tuesday, Oct. 28: TBA

x-Wednesday, Oct. 29: TBA

x-Friday, Oct. 31: TBA

x-Saturday, Nov. 1: TBA

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