After a solid rookie season, Yoshinobu Yamamoto has put together another excellent showing in his second year with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The right-hander enters his start against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday with an 11-8 record, 2.90 ERA, 3.18 FIP, 1.07 WHIP and 10.1 strikeouts per nine in 139.2 innings pitched (25 games).
For as good as Yamamoto has been, he can still stand to improve in several areas. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts wants to see him be more aggressive in attacking the strike zone.
“I think Yoshi’s got to continue to get strike one,” Roberts answered when asked what Yamamoto needs to do in order to be dominant like Pedro Martinez and Tim Lincecum, two pitchers with similar frames.
“I think being more efficient with his pitches. Pedro and Lincecum, those guys were throwing 120, 130 pitches a game. That’s just not going to happen with Yoshi, so I think to be more efficient to be able to go deeper in games, that’s what he needs to do.
“When you get behind in counts and then you hit 1-0, you don’t want to give in, so you go 2-0, that gets the pitch count up. So I think getting strike one is very important for Yoshi.”
As Roberts noted, baseball has evolved where most starters never approach the 120-pitch mark in outings. That makes it all the more important for players to be efficient with the limited pitches they have in each start.
Getting ahead in the count gives the pitcher a significant advantage over the batter, so if Yamamoto can consistently throw first-pitch strikes, there’s no telling how much better he could be.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto feeling ‘pretty good’ physically
Yamamoto has already set a new career-high in innings pitched this season but feels as strong as ever.
“I think compared to previous years, my physical condition in is pretty good,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda earlier this month.
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