Los Angeles Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto 26, who is considered a strong contender for the Rookie of the Year award by Lee Jung-hoo 26, San Francisco, won his major league debut victory in his third appearance of the season.
Yamamoto started the 2024 Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on the 7th, throwing 80 pitches in five innings and pitching three hits, two walks and eight strikeouts without allowing any points.
After stepping down while leading 3-0, Yamamoto became the winning pitcher as the Dodgers secured a 4-1 victory. This was his first win in his third appearance since his debut.
Yamamoto, who played in Japanese professional baseball until last year and was active in winning the MVP and Sawamura awards for three consecutive years, entered the Major League with a whopping 12 years and $325 million contract with the Dodgers ahead of this season.
Yamamoto, who had drawn much attention, disappointed San Diego Padres on April 21 by showing lackluster performance with five runs per inning. He also broke various disgraceful records, including the highest number of runs lost in Dodgers pitcher's debut and the highest number of runs lost in the first inning of Japanese pitcher's debut.
However, Yamamoto, who struggled hard, showed a different attitude in the U.S.A. After pitching well in five innings of two hits and five strikeouts in his debut game at home against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 29, he garnered a win in his third game. His ERA, which soared to 45.00 after the first game, dropped to 4.09 thanks to two scoreless innings.
Yamamoto handled the crisis well in the first inning. He gave up a double to Ian Happ, a walk to Seiya Suzuki, and an infield hit to Cody Bellinger, driving the team to load the bases with no outs.
However, he struck out three batters in a row: Christopher Morell, Dansby Swanson, and Michael Bush. With a slow curveball and fastball reaching 96.7 miles 155.6 kilometers, he roared the batters. In the second inning, he garnered two outs well, walked Hep, and allowed Suzuki to get on base due to an error by the third baseman. However, he avoided crisis by striking out again this time. Bellinger, who had been hit by an infield hit at the previous batter's box, got out of the woods by striking out at four pitches.
Finding stability, Yamamoto returned the third and fourth innings to three outs. With the bases loaded with two outs in the top of the fifth inning, the Dodgers' batters gave Yamamoto the lead by scoring three runs on a wild pitch from his opponent's pitcher and a timely two-run single from Max Muncy. Yamamoto also allowed three outs in the fifth inning, satisfying the winning pitcher's conditions.
The Dodgers started the bullpen in the sixth inning and finished the game 4-1, making Yamamoto the winning pitcher.
Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers, who served as the second designated hitter, made two hits, one run and one walk from four times at bat, helping his junior Yamamoto to win for the first time. With multiple hits in three consecutive games, Ohtani raised his batting average for this season to 0.304. 안전놀이터