Yoshinobu Yamamoto endured a rough start in his MLB debut against the San Diego Padres but has since pitched like a bonafide ace for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Over his last five starts, the right-hander has posted a 2.00 ERA and 0.93 WHIP with 35 strikeouts against five walks in 27 innings of work. He has lowered his season ERA to 3.54 in the process and looks very much like the pitcher who set multiple records for the Orix Buffaloes.
Key to Yamamoto’s turnaround has been improved fastball command. He struggled throwing it for strikes throughout Spring Training and in his Seoul Series start against the Padres.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believes a tweak to the delivery has allowed Yamamoto’s fastball command to improve, via SportsNet LA:
“The adjustment for Yamamoto has been syncing up his delivery, which has allowed for his fastball command to be much better. With that, all of his other pitches are playing the way they’re supposed to.”
In addition to some of the mechanical adjustments he made, Yamamoto has benefited from the Dodgers allowing him to pitch once per week, which was the same schedule he had in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Roberts recently said when asked if he intends to move Yamamoto to a more traditional schedule. “But having the depth of guys in the ‘pen or dropping a starter in if we need to, off days, I think we can sustain this for quite some time.
“But we’ll continue to monitor how Yoshinobu’s stuff plays in his start, how he recovers and all that stuff.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto focused on offspeed pitches to help fastball
After throwing six scoreless innings in his last start against the Washington Nationals, Yamamoto said he focused on throwing his offspeed pitches in the strike zone, which in turn made his fastball more effective.
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