Yoshinobu Yamamoto was named the National League Pitcher of the Month for March/April after an outstanding start to his 2025 season for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yamamoto is the first Dodgers pitcher to win the award since Clayton Kershaw in April 2023 and the first Dodgers’ right-hander to win the award since Walker Buehler in July 2021.
Yamamoto is just the fourth Japanese-born pitcher to win the award and it marks the sixth time a Japanese-born pitcher has won the honor. He’s joined by Yu Darvish (July/August 2020 & September/October 2022), Hideo Nomo (June 1995 and September 1996) and Masahiro Tanaka (May 2014).
Across six starts, the 26-year-old went 3-2 with a 1.06 ERA, 4 earned runs in 34 innings pitched, while allowing 23 hits with 11 walks, 43 strikeouts, a 1.00 WHIP, a .190 opponents’ batting average and 11.38 strikeouts per 9.0 innings.
The Japan native led the Majors in ERA, tied for seventh in the NL in strikeouts, tied for eighth in the NL in WHIP, and ranked 10th among Major League pitchers in opponents’ average.
The 2024 World Series Champion posted back-to-back scoreless starts on April 11 against the Chicago Cubs and April 18 at Texas Rangers, marking the second time in his career that he won consecutive starts, along with May 1 and 7, 2024.
Along with five scoreless innings to end his outing on April 4th against the Philadelphia Phillies, Yamamoto threw 18 consecutive scoreless innings, and dating back to the fourth inning of his start on March 28 against the Detroit Tigers, he did not allow an earned run in 21 consecutive innings.
The right-hander threw at least five innings in all of his starts and threw at least six innings in three straight starts to begin April.
After setting a career high with 10 strikeouts on March 28th against the Tigers, he matched his performance with another 10 punchouts on April 18 at Texas.
Overall, he became the second Dodger with at least 40 strikeouts and fewer than five earned runs allowed in the first month of the season, joining Fernando Valenzuela, who also had 43 strikeouts and allowed just one run in April 1981. Along with the Houston Astros’ Hunter Brown, the duo became the 16th and 17th players in Baseball history to reach those totals in March/April.
The Dodgers’ Opening Day starter against the Cubs in Tokyo earned the win in the first game of 2025, allowing a run on three hits with a walk and four strikeouts at the Tokyo Dome.
Yamamoto faced off against fellow countryman Shota Imanaga, marking the first-ever Opening Day game started by a pair of Japanese-born players. Along with Yusei Kikuchi’s Opening Day start for the Los Angeles Angels, it was the first time Opening Day featured at least three Japanese-born starting pitchers.
Notable mentions receiving votes with Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Among other pitchers who received votes for the NL Pitcher of the Month honor included the San Diego Padres’ Nick Pivetta and Michael King, Jesús Luzardo of the Philadelphia Phillies; Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Milwaukee Brewers’ José Quintana, and Griffin Canning of the New York Mets.
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