If you were among those skeptical as to whether or not 26-year-old Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto had fully recovered from his June 15 rotator cuff strain, you:

1. Were not alone.
2. No longer need to be.

Making his second start since returning from the IL, the highly touted Bizen, Japan native once again lived up to the hype that landed him his lofty 12 year / $325 million contract with the Dodgers back on December 27, 2023 – the longest and most lucrative contract for a pitcher in MLB history.

In his very closely monitored four-innings pitched in the Dodgers eventual 9-0 pounding of the NL East third-place Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on Monday, Yamamoto allowed no runs and only four hits, while walking two and striking out three of the 17 Braves batters he faced, doing so on 72 pitches of which 42 were strikes.

“It was good. I thought that it wasn’t as sharp command-wise as his first one back, but he made pitches when he needed to,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Yamamoto postgame. “I just love the way he navigated and there were some big stressful innings, and he made pitches when he needed to.”

Although Yamamoto didn’t go the requisite five innings to qualify for the win, he definitely convinced those skeptics that he is indeed healthy, and at the absolute perfect time, with only 12 games remaining before postseason play begins.

As for those nine Dodgers runs, seven of them came in yet another explosive inning, this time in the top of the seventh. That inning saw eight Dodgers come to the plate of which six scored, including three on Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman‘s 22nd home run of the season, a 345-foot opposite field shot to left off of Braves left-hander Aaron Bummer to make it 9-0.

“I was just trying to get something up against a massive sinkerballer in Bummer,” Freeman told SportsNet LA’s Kirsten Watson postgame. “He started off all sliders and I got into a hitter’s count, so I was kind of looking heater there, and I got one kind of middle-middle, up a little bit, and I was able to put a good swing on it.”

A good swing indeed.

Play Ball!

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