TEMPE, Ariz. — When Yoshinobu Yamamoto‘s afternoon on the mound was over, manager Dave Roberts had a message to deliver as he came to take the ball: “Good luck in the WBC.”
Yamamoto walked away, bemused. He thought he was going to take the mound one more time this spring.
“Oh, is he?” a visibly surprised Roberts said before letting out a big laugh after Saturday’s 15-2 rout of the Angels. “I was in between, but then I was like, I didn’t want to miss him for sure. So that’s good that he confirmed that, that’s great.”
In fairness to all involved, it’s unusual for a starting pitcher to be one-and-done in Cactus League play, but Yamamoto is operating on a different schedule this spring. Before the Dodgers’ three-peat bid begins in earnest, Yamamoto will lead Samurai Japan’s staff in its World Baseball Classic title defense.
The Dodgers are still finalizing when Yamamoto — and Shohei Ohtani, who went 1-for-3 with a single on Saturday — will leave for the Classic. But Yamamoto will indeed get to take the mound one more time beforehand, likely next Friday against the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium.
Yamamoto got off to a strong start in the Dodgers’ Cactus League opener, tossing a 1-2-3 first inning with two strikeouts on 12 pitches. But he had an extended break when the Dodgers sent 11 batters to the plate in a six-run second inning and was not as sharp when he came back out.
In the bottom of the second, Yamamoto gave up two runs (one earned) on three hits and a fielding error by Teoscar Hernández in left field. His outing came to an end after he threw 30 pitches (22 strikes), with two outs in the frame.
It was right around where the Dodgers expected Yamamoto to be in his first spring tuneup. After his next outing, the rest of his ramp-up will be supervised by Samurai Japan.
“I was looking for some stuff I needed to get back before I go back to Japan and join the team,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “I was looking forward to the feeling, the delivery and those things.”
Having a shorter spring to build up his arm has been the norm for Yamamoto in his big league career. The Dodgers opened the season in Seoul in 2024 and in Tokyo in ’25. But last year, unlike his rookie season in the Majors, he was healthy for the duration.
Yamamoto was the only Dodgers pitcher not to miss a start all last season. He took on even more innings in the postseason, especially the World Series, when he won Games 2, 6 and 7, the final appearance coming on zero days’ rest to clinch series MVP honors. Between the regular season and the postseason, he tossed 211 innings, close to double his workload from the year before.
Thanks to his durability and performance, Yamamoto emerged as the ace for a Dodgers club that weathered pitching injury after pitching injury. He will take on that role for Samurai Japan as well. With another sizable workload in his future, Yamamoto and the Dodgers are being mindful of his limits so that he’s able to stay on the field all season once again.
World Baseball Classic Pool C play begins on March 5 in Tokyo, so there’s limited time for Yamamoto to get into competition mode. But he feels that he’s in a good place after his first game action.
“I was already feeling good,” Yamamoto said. “And then somehow I was able to carry that to today’s game, especially the first inning. I think I was great, but due to the gap between innings, that affected me a little bit.”
Throughout the Dodgers’ bid to become back-to-back champions, Roberts’ message to the team was to do the little things right on a daily basis while also keeping the end goal in sight. That remains a big part of the team’s philosophy heading into the three-peat bid, and it applies on an individual level as well.
Yamamoto has made it no secret that he is striving for greatness this year, but he has to keep his short- and long-term goals aligned. And the Dodgers trust that he will.
“It’s kind of every day, it’s from the day we signed him, how intentional he is about his work and his body care,” Roberts said. “I just know that he’s not going to put himself in harm’s way in any way.”
