Needless to say, when the Dodgers signed 25-year-old right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a MLB record-setting 12-year/$315.8 million contract on December 27, 2023, it left many (most) Dodgers fans both surprised and shocked.

Oh sure, it’s easy to say “It ain’t my money,” but in truth, it actually is. I mean, have you paid to park at Dodger Stadium recently or bought a couple Dodger Dogs?

All of that aside, it is safe to say that every Dodger fan had extremely high hopes that the Bizen, Japan native and NPB superstar would continue his remarkable professional baseball career while wearing Dodger Blue.

Unfortunately, the (very) hard throwing 5′-10″/176 pound right-hander got off to a bit of a rocky start with his new team, posting a less-than-stellar 1-1 record and less-than-ideal 4.50 ERA over his first five starts and combined 22 innings pitched, leaving a good many of those hopeful Dodgers muttering under (and over) their breaths “What a waste of money” – Dodger Dogs notwithstanding.

…and then the (hopefully) real Yoshinobu Yamamoto showed up.

In his sixth start of the season for the Dodgers on Thursday, Yamamoto allowed no runs and only four hits over his six innings of work against the National League East fourth-place Washington Nationals in front of a Nationals Park crowd of 24,185, a good many of whom were sporting Dodgers Blue. Along the way, Yamamoto walked one and struck out a season-high seven, doing so on 97 total pitches, of which 70 were strikes. He also became one of only nine Major League pitchers with three starts of at least five innings and no runs allowed this season.

“So far up to this point, yes that was my best [start],” Yamamoto told reporters through an interpreter following Thursday’s 2-1 win over the Nats for his second win of the season.

As for those two Dodgers runs, the first came on a second-inning solo home run by Dodgers right fielder Teoscar Hernández, a 408-foot shot to left-center field off of Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore.

The winning run came on a RBI double off the bat of Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman in the top of the eighth to score Betts, who had also doubled, from second base. It was Freeman’s eighth double of the season to drive in his 16th run of the season. It was also the 481st double of Freeman’s 15-year future Hall of Fame career.

With Thursday’s win, the Dodgers increased their lead to 2.5 games over the division-rival second-place San Diego Padres, who lost to the NL West last-place Colorado Rockies on Thursday.

Play Ball!

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