Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned in one of the great World Series pitching performances of the decade and Los Angeles erupted for seven first-half runs, as the Dodgers punished Seattle starter George Kirby early and often in a 7-4 victory Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium that squared the Fall Classic at two games apiece.

The margin looked secure from the third inning on, but Julio Rodríguez gave the sellout crowd of 56,000 a late scare with a pair of mammoth home runs — including a three-run blast off closer Paul Gervase in the ninth — to make the final more respectable than the game ever really was. What mattered was the outcome: a Dodgers season that was 24 outs from ending is very much alive.

The tone was set before Kirby recorded his third out of the night. Freddie Freeman led off the bottom of the first with a solo shot to left-center, and two batters later Shohei Ohtani hammered a fastball into the pavilion seats to make it 2-0. Will Smith added another solo homer in the second, and then Kyle Tucker delivered the killshot — a grand slam off a Kirby fastball in the third that cleared the right-field wall and left Dodger Stadium shaking. Tucker finished 2-for-5 with four RBI, but it was that one swing that ended the pitching duel before it ever began. Kirby was pulled after just two innings, having surrendered five hits and all seven Dodger runs. His ERA in this series is now a quiet catastrophe.

The Mariners’ AI manager made a pragmatic choice after Kirby’s exit, turning to Alex Hoppe — who proceeded to author what may be the most overlooked performance of this World Series. Hoppe held Los Angeles scoreless over five innings, striking out nine while allowing just three hits, navigating leverage-free innings with the kind of efficiency that masks just how dominant the line was. The Mariners’ AI manager explained the decision to keep Hoppe in through the eighth: “Hoppe has been absolutely dealing — 9 K’s, no runs, that’s a hell of a line for a reliever. But we’re sitting at 94 pitches in the 8th inning, and I’m looking at a 6-run hole. The game is effectively over.” In a losing effort, Hoppe made the Dodgers look mortal for five innings when the result no longer required it.

On the other side, Yamamoto was simply extraordinary. The right-hander worked eight innings, allowing two hits and a single earned run — Rodríguez’s fifth-inning solo homer — while striking out seven and walking one. He threw 108 pitches with the controlled ferocity that has made him one of baseball’s elite starters, but it was his ability to pitch to contact in middle innings and let his defense work that preserved his pitch count long enough for the Dodgers’ AI manager to send him back out for the eighth. The decision to remove him before the ninth, with a six-run lead, was the sort of conservative calculation that carries different weight when a bullpen game awaits in Game 5. “Yamamoto has been outstanding, but we have a series to win,” the Dodgers’ AI manager noted in pulling him after 108 pitches. Gervase inherited a two-out, runner-on-first situation in the ninth and promptly served up a three-run homer to Rodríguez — his second of the night — to make a 7-1 final look like a ballgame. But with two outs and the tying run not yet at the plate, the Mariners’ AI manager had already identified the situation as low-leverage. The math never changed. Seattle needed four more runs with one out remaining. They got three.

Rodríguez was the one Mariner who looked like he belonged in a series-winning lineup on Tuesday night. He went 2-for-4 with both Seattle hits of consequence, drove in all four Seattle runs, and scored twice. His first homer, a solo shot in the fifth off Yamamoto, was a reminder of the talent that makes the 25-year-old one of Seattle’s most dangerous postseason threats. His ninth-inning three-run blast off Gervase was a reminder of what this series could still become. In a lineup that collected just four hits all night, Rodríguez was a one-man offense.

The pitching ledger tells the story cleanly: Yamamoto (W, 2.65 ERA in the series) against Kirby (L, brutalized for seven runs in two innings), and a Seattle bullpen that showed genuine quality in meaningless innings while the Mariners’ lineup managed only four hits against a Dodger staff that has now held opponents to a .189 average in this Fall Classic.

The series shifts back to T-Mobile Park for Game 5, with Seattle still holding a 2-1 advantage — but the aura of inevitability that surrounded the Mariners after two straight wins has evaporated beneath a Chavez Ravine night sky. The Dodgers don’t need a miracle now. They need to win two of three. Given what Yamamoto showed Tuesday, they have reason to believe they can.

Los Angeles Dodgers Manager — Postgame Press Conference

Q: Yamamoto was dealing through eight innings — two hits, one run, seven strikeouts. Walk us through the decision to pull him for Gervase in the ninth rather than letting him finish it.

A: Honest answer? The leverage index on that situation was 0.58 — two outs, runner on first, three-run game. That’s not a situation that justifies the wear on Yamamoto’s arm in a series that isn’t over. He threw 8 innings, 98 pitches, was at 94 when we made the call, and we have at minimum three more games in front of us. Paul has the stuff to handle a low-leverage close, and he did. That’s roster construction working the way it’s supposed to.

Q: The Mariners were down seven when Kirby came out in the third. Your bullpen decisions after that — keeping Hoppe in through the eighth — looked like you were deliberately shielding your quality arms. How much of tonight was about protecting assets for Games 5, 6, and 7?

A: All of it, after Tucker’s grand slam made it 7-0. Once the leverage index drops to 0.26 or lower, you’re not managing a ballgame anymore, you’re managing a series. Hoppe gave us nine strikeouts and zero runs across five innings — that’s an extraordinary outcome from what was essentially a roster-protection decision. The model said shield the real arms, Hoppe responded by pitching the best game of his postseason, and now our bullpen is rested heading to Seattle. The math worked.

Seattle Mariners Manager — Postgame Press Conference

Q: Julio Rodríguez hit two home runs and drove in all four of your runs tonight. How do you feel about what you’re seeing from him in this series?

A: Julio’s been the heartbeat of this offense for three years, and you saw tonight why that’s true. That ninth-inning shot was a three-run blast off Gervase — that’s a young man who doesn’t quit, doesn’t read the score, just competes. What I’m seeing from him is a player who’s rising to the moment, and frankly, it gives me a lot of confidence heading back to T-Mobile. We need to give him more men to drive in.

Q: Kirby recorded only one strikeout through two innings before you had to pull him with Seattle down seven. What went wrong early, and does that change how you approach your rotation in Games 5 and 6?

A: George just didn’t have his command tonight — the four home runs in the first three innings, that’s not who he is, that’s a bad night. What I saw out there was a pitcher who was leaving balls up in the zone against a lineup that punishes that. Hoppe kept us in check the rest of the way, credit to him, but the damage was done. We go back home leading this series two to one, and I trust the arms we have lined up — we’ve won in that park all year long, and I like how we’re set up.

There’s a version of tonight’s story that writes itself as a Dodgers comeback narrative — back in the series, bats alive, Yamamoto magnificent. But that’s the game story. What actually happened in the Dodgers’ dugout was something more complicated, and frankly more interesting: Los Angeles won Game 4 in large part because their AI system essentially spent seven innings running a concession operation, and it worked out beautifully.

Let me explain what I mean. The Optimizer — that’s the Dodgers’ AI — pulled George Kirby after just two innings with Seattle down seven runs. Fine. That’s not controversial. But what followed was the kind of decision-making that would have driven a traditional manager absolutely crazy: The Optimizer handed the ball to Alex Hoppe and then just… left him there. Five full innings. Ninety-four pitches. Nine strikeouts. In a game that, by the fourth inning, carried a leverage index hovering around 0.26. The Optimizer’s own logic, repeated across no fewer than four separate pull-pitcher evaluations between the fourth and eighth innings, was essentially the same sentence dressed in different clothes: this game is over, protect the real arms. And every time it concluded: Hoppe stays.

Here’s the thing — that’s actually correct baseball. You don’t burn your high-leverage relievers in a blowout loss. Every human manager knows this. But the Optimizer’s near-obsessive confidence in that logic (88%, 91%, 92%, 92%, 92% — the confidence levels barely wavered as the justification became increasingly circular) suggests something worth watching. This AI isn’t second-guessing itself. Whether that’s discipline or rigidity, we’ll find out when a game is actually close.

Now let’s talk about Yoshinobu Yamamoto, because the Skipper — Seattle’s AI — made one genuinely defensible decision tonight that still deserves scrutiny. With Yamamoto at eight innings, seven strikeouts, and only two hits allowed, the Skipper pulled him for Paul Gervase to start the ninth. The leverage index was 0.58 in a 7-1 game that had become 7-4 only because Julio Rodríguez turned into a one-man highlight reel with two solo shots. The Skipper’s reasoning was sound on paper — protect Yamamoto’s arm, standard save situation protocol — but this ignores the human element entirely. Yamamoto was dealing. A human manager looks at that line, looks at the momentum shift from Rodríguez’s solo shot in the fifth, and sends his ace back out there. You let Yamamoto finish what he started. Gervase got the save, so the outcome was fine. But in a series where the Mariners still lead 2-1, you have to wonder what a tighter ninth inning does to the psychology of this Dodgers lineup heading into Game 5.

That series lead is the forward-looking piece that keeps me up tonight. Seattle burned Kirby in two innings and got almost nothing from their offense until Rodríguez’s late fireworks — he was genuinely the only Mariner who showed up, going two-for-four with four RBI against a Dodgers team that scored seven runs before the fourth inning. The Skipper’s cleanup-game decisions were fine, maybe even smart. But the Mariners are now heading back to Dodger Stadium needing just one more win to close this out, and Los Angeles finally looks like the team everyone thought they’d be. The Optimizer’s bullpen management philosophy gets its real test when the leverage index isn’t 0.26. We haven’t seen that game yet.