CHICAGO (AFP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a masterful complete game victory and the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers beat Milwaukee, 5-1, on Tuesday to seize command of their Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff series.

The 27-year-old Japanese right-hander, despite surrendering a home run on his first pitch, delivered the Dodgers’ first complete game in the playoffs since 2004, retiring the final 14 Brewers batters he faced.

Yamamoto struck out six while allowing only one run on three hits and a walk for the first MLB playoff complete game by a Japan-born pitcher and the first by anyone since Justin Verlander in 2017.

Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez smacked home runs for the Dodgers, Muncy blasting his 14th to set the all-time Dodgers career playoff homer record.

“It kind of means a lot to me but the biggest thing is to have so many opportunities to perform in the post-season,” Muncy said.

The Dodgers grabbed a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series (NLCS), which resumes in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The NL champion will play the American League champion, either the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays, in the World Series, which begins on 24 October.

The Mariners lead that series 2-0 with game three on Wednesday in Seattle.

The Dodgers are trying to become the first team to repeat as World Series champion since the New York Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000 while the Brewers reached their only World Series in 1982, losing to St. Louis.

“Coming out of here with two runs on the road is huge and our pitching — unbelievable,” Muncy said.

“For Yoshi, giving up the leadoff homer, to not let that phase him at all, that was incredible.”

The Brewers tagged Yamamoto for five runs in two-thirds of an inning in a July regular season contest, the shortest start of his MLB career, and made him pay early again.

Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio smashed the first offering from Yamamoto over the right-field wall for the Brewers’ only run.

Hernandez, a Dominican outfielder who turns 34 on Wednesday, answered with a solo homer in the second inning, blasting a Peralta curve ball over the left-field wall.

The Dodgers grabbed a 2-1 lead later in the second when Enrique Hernandez singled and scored on an Andy Pages double to right field.

Muncy bashed a solo homer off Dominican right-hander Freddy Peralta with two out in the sixth, boosting LA’s lead to 3-1 and sending the Brewers starter to the showers.

The Dodgers added another insurance run in the seventh inning when Enrique Hernandez doubled, took third base on a Pages sacrifice bunt and scored on Shohei Ohtani’s single to right field.

The visitors struck again in the eighth for a 5-1 lead as Will Smith singled, took second when Muncy walked, reached third on a ground out by Teoscar Hernandez and scored on a Tommy Edman single.