The Los Angeles Dodgers paid a lot of money to secure the services of Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
They locked him down on a 12-year, $325 million pact to be their co-ace of the future alongside Shohei Ohtani.
He didn’t get off to a great start, though, surrendering five runs in an inning of work in the Seoul Series to open the year.
However, since then, he has been nearly flawless, and it’s time to give him his props.
“Since his disastrous MLB debut, Yoshinobu Yamamoto has made 6 starts and has a 1.64 ERA with 40 strikeouts in 33 innings (10.91 K/9), an 0.97 WHIP, and opponents are hitting .203 with a .586 OPS,” MLB analyst Jared Carrabis tweeted.
Those numbers are much closer to what he did in Japan, where he left a career 1.82 ERA in seven seasons.
It’s probably too much to ask him to keep a sub-2.00s ERA over the long term, but it’s clear that Yamamoto has settled down and is now much more comfortable facing MLB-caliber hitters.
He always had the stuff to succeed, people just needed to be patient.
Once he ironed out some command issues and got more comfortable working from the stretch, he unleashed his talent and started to dominate.
Now, even his full season numbers are impressive: a 2.91 ERA, eight walks and 42 strikeouts in 34 innings.
The sky is the limit for Yamamoto, and he might very well find his name among NL Cy Young candidates once everything is said and done.
