Yamamoto shelled in MLB debut
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whose $325 million contract this offseason rewrote the record books, wasn’t on the money in his MLB debut.
The new Los Angeles Dodgers ace lasted only one inning and surrendered five runs, all earned, on Thursday in a 15-11 loss to the San Diego Padres, taking the loss in the second game of the season-opening “Seoul Series” in South Korea.
Yamamoto served up a tworun triple to Jake Cronenworth; a sacrifice fly to Ha-Seong Kim; an RBI double to Luis Campusano that rolled under third baseman Max Muncy’s glove; and a run-scoring single to Tyler Wade that capped the Padres’ first-inning rally at Gocheok Sky Dome.
Michael Grove started the second inning in relief of Yamamoto, who allowed four hits, a walk and hit a batter during his brief outing and left with an inflated 45.00 ERA and 5.00 WHIP.
“I wasn’t ready to execute from the stretch,” Yamamoto said afterward through an interpreter. “I know how to fix it and I’m going to talk to my pitching coaches.”
The 25-year-old Yamamoto joined the Dodgers in the offseason on a 12-year, $325 million contract, exceeding Gerrit Cole’s deal with the Yankees by $1 million to become the biggest ever given to a pitcher, in terms of total value. Yamamoto spent seven years in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league and won the Eiji Sawamura Award — the league’s Cy Young equivalent — in each of the last three seasons.
Armed with a mid-90s fastball and devastating curveball, Yamamoto received strong interest from the Yankees and Mets before choosing the Dodgers, who also signed countryman Shohei Ohtani this offseason to a 10year, $700 million deal featuring heavily deferred money.
Yamamoto also struggled in spring training, pitching to an 8.38 ERA and a 1.97 WHIP over 9.2 innings.
“Just didn’t have the command,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday of
Yamamoto. “It’s not about the stuff. When you’re a command guy, which he’s been his entire career, his life, and you just misfire, get behind in counts, hit batters, that’s just not who he is. We’ve just got to get back to refining the delivery, tightening up the command, and he’ll be fine.”
The two-way Ohtani, who is not expected to pitch this season as he recovers from last year’s elbow surgery, went 2-for-5 with an RBI in his Dodgers debut Wednesday. Ohtani added another hit and an RBI in five at-bats Thursday.
Hanging over the Dodgers were the bombshell reports that Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired Wednesday. The law firm Berk Brettler LLP asserted in a statement that Ohtani was “the victim of a massive theft.” That allegation followed an Ohtani spokesman telling ESPN the Dodgers star had transferred a sum reported to be at least $4.5 million to Mizuhara to cover the latter’s gambling debt.
This week’s two-game series marked the first MLB games to be played in South Korea. The other 28 MLB teams are set to open the 2024 regular season next week.