Los Angeles –
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto had climbed the mountain many times in Japan, but reaching 100 pitches on Monday for the first time in the MLB marked another step forward.
Kevin Newman of the Arizona Diamondbacks hit that 100th pitch, a slider, up the middle for a runscoring single that ended Yamamoto’s outing. It wasn’t a perfect ending to the performance, but it wasn’t enough to spoil the evening, a 6-4 Dodgers victory.
The performance – two runs, eight strikeouts and one walk in 6⅓ innings – represented what has become his new normal. After a disastrous debut in Seoul, in which he allowed five runs in one inning, and an awkward first few starts on American soil, Yamamoto has once again reset expectations.
