Padres’ Yu Darvish gushes over Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s World Series performance

There are compliments, and then there’s the kind of nod a craftsman gives another after watching something outrageous up close. That’s what San Diego Padres starter Yu Darvish offered on Saturday night, respect from a peer who’s seen everything, after Yoshinobu Yamamoto shouldered the Dodgers to a second straight title.

In a World Series that kept spiking the drama meter, Yamamoto’s answer in Game 7 was to grab the ball on zero days’ rest and smother the Blue Jays’ last oxygen supply. He didn’t just steady the night; he bent it to his routine, his tempo, his split. The final box score will remember the heroics; the pitchers watching will remember the audacity. 

Yu Darvish tips his cap as Yoshinobu Yamamoto steals the World Series spotlight

And it wasn’t a one-night trick. Yamamoto stacked a postseason built on economy and ruthlessness: a four-hit complete game in Game 2, a 96-pitch start in Game 6, and then 2 ⅔ scoreless out of the ‘pen on Nov. 1 to close the whole thing, three World Series wins, a 1.02 ERA across 17 2/3  innings, and the MVP trophy to prove it. That made him the first pitcher to notch three wins in a Series since Randy Johnson in 2001, the kind of historical company that snaps even jaded veterans to attention. For anyone wondering if the moment was too big, Yamamoto answered by making the moment small. 

Darvish noticed. The Padres pitcher jumped on X to tip his cap with a simple, perfect line, translated, “Yamamoto-kun was way too amazing in all sorts of ways.” It read less like fandom and more like tradecraft: a technician acknowledging a clinic from another technician, delivered in the more tense inning of the year. Japanese outlets captured the post, a quick snapshot of how performances like this travel across rivalries and continents in an instant. Real recognizes real. 

As for the particulars of Game 7: on the road at Rogers Centre, the Dodgers survived the full October gauntlet, winning 5–4 in 11 innings. Yamamoto, throwing again a day after that 96-pitch start, was the stop-leak Los Angeles needed, carving through 2 2/3 scoreless frames and grabbing the final out. The numbers are brutal for hitters and beautiful for pitching nerds, 15 strikeouts in the Series, just 10 hits and two walks allowed, and a two-day stretch that will get replayed in clubhouses for years. The MVP selection was a layup. 

From a Padres lens, the message is as clear as it is uncomfortable: the path through the NL West still runs through elite run prevention, and the Dodgers just doubled down with a pitcher who’s built for layered series and short rest chaos. 

San Diego doesn’t need to copy L.A., but they do need to counter it. Maximizing any swing-and-miss they have, and stockpiling enough bullpen length to win the weird, long games that define Octobers like this one. If Yamamoto’s weekend was a masterclass, Darvish’s salute was a syllabus note: this is the bar. Now go build a staff that can clear it.