Yoshinobu Yamamoto dazzled in his Los Angeles Dodgers Spring Training debut, garnering praise from teammates and Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy alike after getting through two scoreless innings.
But his encore performance was a much different result. Yamamoto managed to collect four strikeouts and get through three innings against the Chicago White Sox, but allowed five runs on six hits and three walks.
Yamamoto threw 32 of 58 pitches for strike and allowed the leadoff man to reach in every inning.
Following his outing, the 25-year-old revealed he had some trouble with pitching out of the stretch but otherwise came away pleased from the start because of addressing other areas, per Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times:
“I was not feeling right [out of the stretch], and that’s something I need to work on, to adjust,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “Overall, the numbers weren’t good. There were too many balls and walks. But one good thing was I could try what I wanted to try. I was testing a couple of things, and that was good.”
It’s possible the right-hander was further working to become more comfortable with using the MLB ball and gaining more of a feel for it with his pitches. The curveball was problematic for Yamamoto but his patented split-finger fastball was used for each of the four strikeouts.
The left side of the Dodgers’ infield also didn’t do him many favors with Gavin Lux struggling to finish plays at shortstop and Max Muncy being charged for an error in addition to also seeing a ball get by him.
Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto tipping pitches?
Yamamoto did not specify what he worked on, but it’s plausible another aspect was ensuring he did not tip pitches. That was a talking point after his first start, when Rick Monday noted on the SportsNet LA broadcast that Yamamoto’s hand positioning and movement before delivering a pitch served as a tell for opposing batters.
Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior downplayed concern at this time, and Yamamoto said he would make changes if they were deemed necessary.
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