

Sun May 24 7:40am ET
Field Level Media
The visiting Los Angels Dodgers hope Yoshinobu Yamamoto can repeat his postseason performance against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday afternoon in the finale of a three-game series between first-place teams.
Yamamoto (3-4, 3.32 ERA), who threw a complete-game three-hitter against the Brewers in last year's National League Championship Series, will oppose fellow right-hander Brandon Sproat (1-2, 5.75) on Sunday.
The Dodgers evened the current series with an 11-3 victory Saturday behind Teoscar Hernandez's three-run homer and six RBIs, as well as a record-setting performance by the bullpen.
Starter Roki Sasaki allowed three runs in the first but left after five innings with a 4-3 lead. Relievers Alex Vesia, Kyle Hurt, Tanner Scott and Jonathan Hernandez each followed with a scoreless inning to extend the bullpen's scoreless streak to 36 innings over 11 games, the team's longest in the modern era (since 1901), surpassing the 33 innings set in 1998.
"They're good," Brewers manager Pat Murphy said afterward about the Dodgers' bullpen. "They throw on the edges, they throw effective pitches, they have more than one pitch for a strike ... credit them. Their bullpen's really, really solid right now."
The Dodgers' streak is the longest since the Cleveland bullpen threw 39 consecutive scoreless innings in 2017. The Kansas City Athletics hold the bullpen record with 44 consecutive scoreless innings in 1966.
The Dodgers are 8-2 in their last 10 games and lead the NL West. They swept the Brewers in the NLCS last season but snapped a nine-game regular-season skid to Milwaukee. The Brewers, who lead the NL Central, are 12-3 over their last 15 games.
Yamamoto has lost three of his last five starts but pitched better than his record indicates. He lost his last time out despite allowing just one run and three hits over seven innings in a 1-0 setback at San Diego on Monday.
"The last few haven't been great per his standards, but tonight I thought was a really good one," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said following Yamamoto's last start. "The win-loss, you know you've got to score runs from him, too."
Seven of the 21 earned runs Yamamoto has given up have come in the first inning. The Brewers scored three runs in the first in each of the first two games of the series.
Yamamoto will face the Brewers for the first time since his complete game three-hitter in the Dodgers' 5-1 victory in Game 2 of the NLCS last season. He surrendered a leadoff homer to Jackson Chourio in the first inning, then dominated the rest of the way, striking out seven and walking one in an 111-pitch outing.
On Saturday, the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani extended his hitting streak to nine games with a seventh-inning single. He is batting .457 over that stretch with two homers, four doubles, a triple and 12 RBIs.
Sproat came up one out short of the victory his last time out, allowing three runs on three hits in 4 2/3 innings in a 9-3 win over the Chicago Cubs on Monday. He struck out five but walked three and hit a batter.
He will face the Dodgers for the first time in his career.
Brewers pitchers walked 11 batters on Saturday, including Freddie Freeman four times, their most since issuing 11 walks against the Cubs in 2016.
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