It’s almost automatic. When 26-year-old right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto is on the mound for the Dodgers, and when 29-year-old utility infielder/outfielder Tommy Edman is in the Dodgers lineup (which he has been in 14 of the Dodgers 15 games thus far this season), they usually win.

It happened again on Friday night in front of a packed Dodger Stadium crowd of 53,993 (on Freddie Freeman bobblehead night), when the Dodgers shutout the NL Central second place Chicago Cubs 3-0 and are now tied with the NL West first-place San Diego Padres in wins at 11.

But since the Dodgers have played two more games (and have one more loss) than their division rivals because of that Japan thing, they are technically sitting in third place in the division a half-game (.053 percentage points) behind the 11-3 NL West first place San Diego Padres, and a half-game (.016 percentage points) behind the 10-3 NL West second place San Francisco Giants.

But enough with the math stuff, which will certainly change in the coming days and weeks.

Making his fourth start of the 2025 regular season, the now 2-1 Yamamoto pitched a steller 6.0 innings on Friday, allowing no runs and only two hits. In the process, the popular Bizen, Japan native struck out a season-high nine Cubs batters while walking only one, to give him a team-best 1.23 ERA over his combined 22.0 innings pitched this season.

“Tonight was a really good ballgame, clean ballgame. Obviously, Yoshi was very good, set the tone, filling up the strike zone, getting swing and miss, a lot of punch outs,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Yamamoto postgame. “The split was really good, fastball really good, mixed in some curveballs when he needed to keep ’em off balance, which was great. Efficient. Getting through six was great,” added the Dodger skipper.

And then there’s that Edman fellow – again. As he seems to do almost every game, ‘Tommy Tank’ (as Edman is affectionally called by his teammates) launched his sixth home run of the season – a monster 423-foot/three-run shot into the Left Field Pavilion in the bottom of the sixth inning – for the only runs scored and needed to give his team and Yamamoto the win. Edman’s blast tied him with Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber, Athletics first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, and Angels outfielder Mike Trout for the most in the MLB.

In addition to his MLB-tying six home runs, Edman also now 14 RBIs on the young season, second most on the team behind only Teoscar Hernández‘s 16.

As for those Freddie Freeman bobblehead, you can bet they will command a pretty penny on eBay.

Play Ball!

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