TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani will resume enjoying each methods this season, however he may not turn into the primary Japanese pitcher to ever win a Cy Younger Award.
Newcomer Roki Sasaki may not both.
By the top of this season, the excellence might very nicely belong to the opposite Japanese pitcher on the Dodgers.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto has pitched just one sport, the Dodgers’ 4-1 opening-day victory over the Chicago Cubs within the Tokyo Dome.
Yamamoto has pitched solely 5 innings, his arm not sufficiently constructed as much as pitch any longer with this season beginning greater than every week sooner than traditional due to this abroad voyage to his homeland.
However the 5 innings Yamamoto pitched on Tuesday night time confirmed what coaches and gamers had been whispering about in spring coaching: Yamamoto returned for his second main league season a brand new pitcher.
He opened this yr throwing more durable than he did in 2024, his common fastball velocity almost 97 mph.
He projected better confidence.
Yamamoto restricted the Cubs to 1 run, three hits and a stroll and struck out 4. He successfully used his splitter and confounded his opponents by throwing in an occasional curveball.
The machine to speak with catcher Will Smith malfunctioned firstly of the sport?
No downside.
Even after opening the sport with a pitch-clock violation that resulted in a leadoff stroll to Ian Happ, Yamamoto pitched a scoreless first inning.
Yamamoto struck a better resemblance to the October hero who defeated the San Diego Padres within the deciding sport of the Nationwide League Division Sequence, not the apprehensive newcomer who was up and down over the common season.
He actually appeared nothing just like the pitcher who was unquestionably terrible in his first-ever main league begin, a one-inning, five-run debacle in opposition to the Padres in South Korea.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto flashed monumental potential throughout Tuesday’s Tokyo Sequence opener in opposition to the Cubs.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
Yamamoto appeared like a Cy Younger-caliber pitcher.
He simply has to do what he did on Tuesday many times and many times, and there are official questions on whether or not he can. Yamamoto was shut down for shut to 3 months final season due to shoulder issues, and his arm bears the load of his substantial workloads over eight seasons with the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese league.
Yamamoto doesn’t have the bodily body of his two countrymen on his staff. However of the three Japanese pitchers on the staff, he may very well be the simplest.
