PHOENIX — Last year, Yoshibou Yamamoto’s season debut was a cause for alarm.
This year, it will signal just how much trust the Japanese right-hander has earned entering his second year in the Dodgers organization.
Even though the team added a two-time Cy Young Award this winter in Blake Snell, a 23-year-old international phenom in Roki Sasaki, and returns last year’s opening day starter Tyler Glasnow, manager Dave Roberts announced this week that it will likely be Yamamoto who gets the ball in the Dodgers’ season opener next month.
“I’m very looking forward to it, to be able to pitch, perform, at the Japanese ballpark again,” Yamamoto said Thursday through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “And I’d like to get myself ready the best I can.”
Granted, the setting of the team’s opening series might have had some influence on the decision, with the Dodgers beginning their season with a two-game series in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs. In the opener, Yamamoto will likely square off with fellow Japanese star Shota Imanaga at the Tokyo Dome. When Cubs manager Craig Counsell was asked about his decision to start Imanaga in that game, Counsell joked, “I don’t think I have a choice.”
With Yamamoto, however, the potential opening day honor is also reflective of the strides he made in his rookie MLB season last year — a campaign that started with a disastrous debut in South Korea against the San Diego Padres, was nearly derailed by a midseason shoulder injury that sidelined him for almost three months, but ended with the diminutive flame-thrower emerging as the team’s most consistent starter during their postseason run to a World Series title.
“I learned a lot from all the experiences last year,” Yamamoto said after posting a 7-2 record and 3.00 ERA in 18 regular-season outings last year, then a 3.86 ERA in four playoff starts — all of them victories for the Dodgers.
“That kind of helped me to adjust to what I was doing before, and what I needed to do [to be successful in the majors],” Yamamoto added.
2024 was a year of transformation for Yamamoto, who signed a record-breaking $325 million contract with the Dodgers last offseason after winning three MVP awards during his career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league.
In his MLB debut in South Korea, he was knocked around for five runs in one troublesome inning. His performance over the rest of the first half of the season featured more inconsistencies, with Yamamoto struggling with everything from pitch-tipping to unusually shaky command of the strike zone.
The low point came after a stellar seven-inning shutout performance against the New York Yankees in June, when Yamamoto suffered a strained rotator cuff in his right shoulder. For the next three months, he was stuck on the injured list. And deep into the season, his availability for October remained in doubt.
In the end, though, Yamamoto not only returned to action in time for the Dodgers’ playoff run, but looked increasingly comfortable in his new surroundings. His pinpoint fastball command returned. His use of a signature splitter and curveball kept opposing hitters off balance. And in his final start of the year, in a pivotal Game 2 of the World Series, Yamamoto dominated the Yankees again, giving up just one run and one hit over 6 ⅓ innings.
“Obviously, on this stage, he was fantastic,” Roberts said that night.
Yamamoto’s goal this year is to make such gems a more common occurrence, with the 26-year-old aiming to remain healthy and consistent as one of several frontline options in the Dodgers’ loaded new-look rotation.
“This is my second year, so it’s a little more comfortable,” Yamamoto said. “I like to enjoy the new guys this one month through spring training, and then get myself ready for the games.”
Yamamoto, whose javelin-based training routine became a point of fascination in camp last spring, said he didn’t change much in his offseason program this winter. But this spring, he does occupy a slightly different role in the Dodgers clubhouse, serving as something of a mentor for Sasaki as he embarks on a similar transition from Japan to MLB.
“I’m very happy to have him on the same team with us,” Yamamoto said of Sasaki, a former teammate on Japan’s 2023 World Baseball Classic squad whom Yamamoto helped woo to Los Angeles this winter.
Will there be any rookie hazing of Sasaki this spring?
“Not at this point so far,” Yamamoto answered with a laugh. “But probably.”
As far as opening day is concerned, Yamamoto said a potential matchup against Imanaga — who also debuted in the majors last year, earning an All-Star selection with a 15-3 record and 2.91 ERA — would be “very exciting” for himself and fans across Japan.
But, he has bigger goals for 2025, too, trying to use the lessons he learned early in his rookie campaign to author a more complete sophomore season in the majors.
“Last year I spent three months rehabilitating,” Yamamoto said in Japanese. “This year, I want to do my best to contribute to the team for the entire season and to become world champions again.”
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