Welcome Back, Starter

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Welcome back to baseball, starting pitchers – we really missed you.

Thanks for bringing some sanity back to the game. Even a Jonas Bros mid-game music stoppage by Rob Manfred could not totally mess up Game 2 of the World Series, a complete-game masterpiece by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a 5-1 Dodgers win over the Blue Jays to even the series at a game apiece.

Yamamoto retired the final 20 Blue Jays he faced and did it with a nod and a smile because he knew no one could touch him.

Yamamoto threw 105 pitches, 73 strikes, and faced the potent Blue Jays lineup three-plus times through the order and amazingly, after all that, the Dodgers still won the game and Yamamoto’s right arm did not fall off.

He attacked hitters, used his six pitches of excellence and his curve ball was a difference maker. Pitch up and down, east and west, and don’t walk anybody – and great things happen on the mound.

Thanks for taking the ball and going over the fake 100-pitch limit. Thanks for keeping the two managers, Dave Roberts and John Schneider, from playing Bullpen Roulette, the surest way for fans to lose interest in the game and the World Series.

Most of all thanks to the Dodgers for spending money.

The Dodgers are not ruining baseball, in fact, they are showing what it takes to perhaps become the first National League team to win back-to-back World Series since the Cincinnati Reds of Big Red Machine fame. The Reds won two in a row in 1975-’76.

Fall of 1975 also happened to be the debut of Welcome Back, Kotter. In 2025, we now have Welcome Back, Starter.

That’s 49 years ago. That’s a long time since an NL team won back-to-back World Series. No team has won back-to-back titles since the Yankees – under a completely different mindset – won three in a row, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

I wanted to make the point that this is really historic in a National League sense. If the Dodgers can muster three more wins, and this would be something that has not happened in – again – 49 years. Just think about that for a second.

Fall of 1975 also happened to be the debut of Welcome Back, Kotter.

In 2025, we now have Welcome Back, Starter.

Two straight complete games by Yamamoto marks the first time that has happened in the postseason since Curt Schilling threw three straight complete games in 2001.

In that ’76 World Series the Big Red Machine with Captain Hook Sparky Anderson managing the team, the Reds swept the Yankees in four games and in each game, the Reds’ starting pitcher made it into at least the seventh inning. Game 1 starter Don Gullett went 7.1 innings, allowing only one run. Game 2 starter Fred Norman pitched 6.1 innings, allowing three runs. Game 3 starter Pat Zachry went 6.2 innings, allowing two runs and Game 4 starter Gary Nolan locked it down with another 6.2 innings, allowing two runs.

My point in giving such detail is to show that the starting pitcher does not have to be a Hall of Fame pitcher to give his team length in the World Series.

This is a mindset and a will to get the job done, that is the difference. This is a mindset, and a will that has been completely destroyed by analytics and the Nerds in charge of teams.

It can be done. It must be done.

What has happened to baseball is crazy. At the slightest sign of danger, managers, under orders from a pre-game script, do not trust their starters anymore and they revert to the bullpen game – which may work okay in July but is a different animal come late October.

By that point, most bullpens have been burned to a crisp. By that point, opposing hitters know the relievers better than they know the starters. And talent-wise most relievers can’t match up with the starters. Those Yankee teams of 1998, ’99 and 2000, had Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera shutting the door, so that was a completely different story and there were a few times in October where even the Great Rivera did not get the job done.

The absurdity of rushing a successful starter out of a game makes about as much sense as an NFL team taking out QB 1 and replacing him with QB 2 because QB 1 missed a couple of receivers.

Show patience.

Show them the money, too.

As I said earlier the Dodgers are not ruining baseball, they are taking every advantage possible to them to put the best starting pitchers out there on the mound that they can; and Yamamoto and his $325 million contract, plus the $50 million the Dodgers dropped on a posting fee was worth every penny. Other teams like the Yankees and Mets wanted him but could not close the deal.

No, the teams ruining baseball are the cheapest of teams, who will not pay their star pitchers and right now, it appears the Detroit Tigers are going to go to the top of that list because it is going to be difficult to sign ace Tarik Skubal to a long-term contract. That fan based has been energized with the performance of Skubal & Co. To not have the foresight to sign Skubal to a long-term deal after winning a Cy Young award is hard to fathom. That is what is ruining baseball.

Put the Pirates in that group too because they are allowing Future Dodger Paul Skenes to die on the Pirates’ vine because they are not giving Skenes the kind of teammates he deserves. Their offense stinks.

As for the Dodgers, I believe they signed Shohei Ohtani so they could create a pipeline from Japan and sign Yamamoto and now Roki Sasaki, too. That is a game plan worth having. Spend money to make money.

Teams like the Mets have the money but look at the quality of pitchers the Mets and David Stearns signed before this season – like Frankie Montas. That they were also relying on Sean Manaea and converting Clay Holmes to a starter, plus the wild card of Kodai Senga, shows how poorly the Mets have gauged the starting pitching world. Yeah, they signed recent birthday boy Juan Soto away from the Yankees, but they didn’t do nearly enough on the mound. Another NFL comp: It is like the Bengals signing those star wide receivers but not having the offensive linemen needed to succeed.

Yet, most Mets fans will give Stearns a pass, as will the owner Steve Cohen, but I just don’t get it. The Mets are ruining baseball a lot more than the Dodgers, the Yankees continue to not get the big signing and that has been a problem over the last 16 years of not winning a World Series.

One thing that Andrew Friedman does with the Dodgers is that he not only has the scouts to identify top talent – and no one scouted Yamamoto as thoroughly as the Dodgers – but Friedman identifies other team’s poor ownership and takes advantage.

Let me give you two examples – Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani.

The fact that the Red Sox traded away Betts and the Angels could not keep Ohtani after they spent all that money, time and effort, shows you how poorly both teams are run. If the Dodgers win the World Series this year, Betts, who moved from outfield to shortstop and is playing like Derek Jeter, will have won four World Series rings since 2018.

Friedman identified the idiocy of the Angels and the Red Sox ownership and attacked. That is how it is done. It kind of reminds me of decades ago when the Yankees used the Kansas City A’s as their minor league system. That’s how they got key players like third baseman Clete Boyer, pitchers Ryne Duren and Ralph Terry and slugger Roger Maris.

Trading for Betts and signing Ohtani as a free agent changed the landscape for the Dodgers. Step 2 of the process was signing Yamamoto as a free agent with Los Angeles being a natural landing spot for Japanese stars. Add to the mix free agent Blake Snell, who previously pitched for two of the Dodgers’ biggest rivals in the Giants and Padres and you have a championship makeover. Step 3 was signing Japanese star Roki Sasaki, beating out the Blue Jays and Padres for his services, another coup. Sasaki is acting as the Dodgers closer right now, really the only dependable arm in a questionable bullpen after being a starting pitcher.

Of course, these are the Deferral Dodgers – and they have all the money in the world, I get that – but other teams should be able to make wise decisions, too, even without the Dodgers payroll.

The Dodgers allow other teams to act like idiots, and they take complete advantage. That the Pirates can’t make Paul Skenes a lifetime Pirate shows what is wrong with the system and there will be a war between the players and the owners after the 2026 season, but the bottom line is the Dodgers identify that talent and go after it. To the Blue Jays credit, they identified how important Vlad Guerrero Jr. was to them and signed him to a $500 million contract. It can be done. The Yankees lucked out with the Giants not having the sense to sign Cali Kid Aaron Judge when he was a free agent or else the Yankees would be really up the creek.

The Dodgers simply use the system better than anyone else, and here is the key to the whole thing; when they have a great starting pitcher like Yamamoto or Snell, they are pushing him this postseason. Two complete games from Yamamoto reminds me of the 1988 postseason when I was there to watch Orel Hershiser do his Dodger Bulldog thing.

Now the Dodgers have more bulldogs than anyone else and three more wins and they will match the 1975-’76 Big Red Machine as being the last National League team to win back-to-back World Series.

At that moment, Dave Roberts & Co. would become the Big Blue Machine.